Cambodia to switch on internet gateway Feb. 16: NYT
Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 12:59 pm
Posted in the Bangkok Post is this New York Times story:
Headline: Cambodia internet soon to be like China
https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/22478 ... controlled
Headline: Cambodia internet soon to be like China
More details:Cambodia's National Internet Gateway, set to begin operating Feb 16, will send all internet traffic — including from abroad — through a government-run portal. The gateway, which is mandatory for all service providers, gives state regulators the means to "prevent and disconnect all network connections that affect national income, security, social order, morality, culture, traditions and customs."
Government surveillance is already high in Cambodia. Each ministry has a team that monitors the internet. Offending content is reported to an internet crime unit in the Ministry of Interior, the center of the country’s robust security apparatus. Those responsible can be charged with incitement and sent to prison.
But rights groups say that the new law will make it even easier for the authorities to monitor and punish online content, and that the recent arrests are meant to further intimidate citizens into self-censorship in a country where free speech is enshrined in the constitution.
"The authorities are emboldened by China as an example of an authoritarian state that gives Cambodia political cover, new technology and financial resources," said Sophal Ear, a dean at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University whose family escaped the Khmer Rouge, a murderous regime that seized power in Cambodia in 1975.
"The National Internet Gateway is merely centralizing what has been a decentralised system of control over Cambodia’s internet," he said. "The outcome will be to crush what little remains of freedom of expression online."
https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/22478 ... controlled