- Published: 07/09/2012 at 06:39 PM
- Writer: Online Reporters
The order is contained in a letter signed by Pracha Taerat, the ministry's deputy permanent secretary, and sent to all provincial governors on Friday. It asks them to inform their subordinates and make sure they comply with the new regulation. Each letter had a document attached summarising statistics on internet use in the ministry’s offices from early this year.
According to the letter, ministry officials will be barred from visiting Facebook from 8.30am to noon and from 1pm to 4.30pm. Certain other unidentified websites offering audio-visual downloads that are "useless to bureaucratic work" will also be blocked.Ministry officials began investigating the problem recently after encountering transmission problems while holding video conferences, said Manrat Rattanasukonj, director of the information technology and communication centre in the Office of the Permanent Secretary for Interior.The ministry makes heavy use of video conferencing for meetings with its agencies in the provinces and also with Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra at Government House. An examination found widespread use of YouTube and live chat via Facebook at ministry offices had eaten up a large amount of the internet bandwidth supposedly set aside for holding live video conferences. After Oct 1, YouTube will still be accessible [for ministry officials] as usual, "but we will make the download speed [of the content] slower", Mr Manrat said. "For the ministry's routine monthly meetings, the dates have been set. But for extra conferences, it is unpredictable to tell when," he added."If the prime minister wants to hold a live video meeting with a provincial governor, we must be ready at all times to avoid a repeat of the problem."
Share your thoughts
- Discussion 1 : 08/09/2012 at 11:28 AM
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@Disc 2 - Right on.
And the government wants to increase their wages to 15,000 baht!!! These people work 5 days a week, and the number of hours they actually work in a day is like at most 4 hours.
- Discussion 2 : 08/09/2012 at 04:34 AM
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prh - well, I doubt Thai public servants are overpaid, but we get your point.
My question is why do they have to wait until Oct. 1? Just cut it off now.
- Discussion 3 : 08/09/2012 at 01:28 AM
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Why wait until 1st October to block Facebook and why not block YouTube completely ?
- Discussion 4 : 07/09/2012 at 10:49 PM
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Two things come to my mind here.
1Long before facebook processing at government offices was slow so you cant blame facebook
2.Band width the problem is the internet in Thailand,which is disastrous i rarely get a day that internet not off on off on and for the companies to tell us that they give us 6mb no way Don't blame face book blame the internet as it just has not got the capacity to manage Whos problem this is i not know but under the trade descriptions act internet here is not giving the service it should be or any where near it I hope when g4 comes someone will at least get it going to g3 standards as g3 is not up to anywhere near it is in other countries
- Discussion 5 : 07/09/2012 at 09:41 PM
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A few months ago I was sitting for hours at the Chiang Mai immigration office waiting and waiting. Next to me was a Thai wife with her foreign husband. We were, of course, frustrated with the loss of valuable time from our work. We watched staff processing applications slowly while other staff were busy on computers reading facebook. We were able to see the monitor screens and the recognizable facebook pages. We wondered why they couldn't have been doing something to help the slow working officials process our applications faster. I agree with this article that social websites should be blocked during working hours. Perhaps these people could be trained to process applications instead of sitting idly playing on facebook. Then you could give them a pay raise and up their positions.
- Discussion 6 : 07/09/2012 at 08:50 PM
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Re: #1 Spot on!!
With the greatest respect, they are public servants and basically do no work. Overstaffed, overpaid, under-worked & basically corrupt. Facebook is the way they spend their day at the tax payer expense. Get paid, have free internet & keep in-touch with your friends. Get a job in the Public Service.
That's the 'WAY TO GO'
- Discussion 7 : 07/09/2012 at 08:07 PM
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If you are using Facebook you are not working and that is steeling from your employer.
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