On Tuesday, the Thai government announced that it had blocked nearly 200 pornographic websites, including Pornhub. The country’s digital minister, Puttipon Punnakanta, said that the block was in line with Thailand’s cybercrime law, which prohibits access to porn and gambling websites.
It’s a bold move for a country with “a globally-known sex industry,” reported Reuters. Not just that, but the country is among the top twenty in the world for smut consumption on Pornhub—according to the site’s 2019 analysis, Thailand ranked at number 17 for traffic. In fact, last year, Thailand topped Pornhub’s list of “longest-lasting countries” with an average time of 11 minutes and 21 second spent on the site per visit.
Clearly, the Thai people like their porn. And, as might be expected, they got pretty pissed off when their government tried to take it away from them.
The hashtag #SavePornhub began trending almost immediately on social media, as did a Thai-language hashtag that translates to #HornyPower.
Though no link was provided in the Reuters story, one Twitter user named Jirawat Punnawat reportedly wrote, “If someone doesn’t hate the current military government, now they probably do.”
Anonymous Party, an activism group, reportedly said, “We want to reclaim Pornhub. People are entitled to choices.” And at least one protest broke out outside the digital ministry over the porn block.
The ban comes after months of unrest and youth-led protests demanding that Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha be removed from office and that reforms be made to reduce the power of King Maha Vajiralongkorn. With anti-royal sentiment running so high, reported Reuters, “Some internet users asked whether the ban was about trying to protect Thai morals, or because the site featured some compromising royal images.”
The Thai government has clearly further upset of its young and horny citizens with this censorial move. But the Thai people need not fret too much just yet over their ability to actually access online porn. Tech-savvy Thai folks need only use a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, to access whatever sexy website they like, as they’ve been doing in India since porn blocks went into effect in 2018.
And it appears they’re already on it. Internet research firm Top10VPN told Reuters that after Pornhub was made inaccessible in Thailand on Monday, searches from the country for VPNs spiked “by 640% compared to the September-October daily average.”
Looks like the Thai won’t be wilting into sexless obscurity just yet. Still, we’ll see how this move plays out in the coming months, and whether the government backs down in the face of #HornyPower.
