By Kenny Teng
BANGKOK, Jan 21 (Bernama) -- The Thai government has intensified its crackdown on online crime, blocking more than 220,000 illegal social media accounts, pages and website URLs since the start of the current fiscal year, the Prime Minister’s Office said Wednesday.
Deputy Spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office Airin Phanrit said the action was carried out by the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DES) under the government’s urgent “Quick Win” policy, aimed at cutting off key online channels used by criminal syndicates.
She said that between Oct 1, 2025, and Jan 11, 2026, the DES blocked a total of 220,486 illegal social media accounts, pages and website URLs.
"In December alone, 116,397 illegal URLs were taken down. URLs linked to online gambling accounted for the largest share of blocked content, totalling 183,977 during the period of more than three months in fiscal year 2026.
"This was followed by URLs related to e-cigarettes (14,618), alcohol advertising (10,139), the buying and selling of cannabis (2,943), prostitution (2,040) and firearms (1,990)," she said in a statement on Wednesday.
She added that other blocked content included misinformation, fraud, lèse-majesté, hate speech and obscene material, amounting to 4,779 URLs.
Airin said the enforcement drive aligns with the government’s broader efforts to address security threats and social risks, noting that the results demonstrate tangible progress in combating online crime.
She added that the DES has deployed the “WebD” platform to speed up the suspension of illegal websites, using artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) to detect content, gather evidence, generate paperless court petitions and automatically issue orders to internet service providers.
The ministry also uses a “URLs Checker” system to continuously monitor and verify blocking actions, enabling authorities to shut down more than 183,000 online gambling-related URLs, she said.
-- BERNAMA
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