The rise of internet in Thailand has seen the Thai government place additional emphasis on monitoring the web for ‘unsuitable’ content, to the point that it has now set up a dedicated cyber crime agency.

AFP has more details here (via Yahoo).

The government, which has removed tens of thousands of web pages in recent years for insulting the royal family, said the main task of the Bureau of Prevention and Eradication of Computer Crime would be to protect the monarchy.

“The monarchy is crucial for Thai national security because it is an institution that unifies the entire nation,” government spokesman Watchara Kanikar said.

Under the kingdom’s strict lese majeste rules, insulting the monarchy or a member of the royal family can result in jail terms of up to 15 years. Anyone can file a lese majeste complaint, and police are duty-bound to investigate it.

Membership of Facebook in Thailand recently topped 3 million adults, recent political turmoil has been a major driver responsible for 500,000 new members joining in a six week period during April and May 2010.

The rise of Thais using social media has seen many benefits including the discussion of politics, sharing of ideas and sharing of information, breaking news (including updates from the ‘battle ground’ during recent protests and the government’s response) – however increasingly the ugly side of Facebook has emerged too.

Many groups and Twitter accounts have sprung up with vitriolic and abusive comments, predominantly from pro-government supporters.

There is also the issue of censorship itself with Prachactai reporting CRES blocked more 1,150 websites in last week of May alone, while Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) recently claimed ”the aggregate total [of websites] blocked so far is over 65,000”.

The creation of this new agency comes as little surprise given that a small number of officials had been responsible for policing all content on the web. The move is sure to see more content and websites blocked, with social networks like Twitter (Thaksin Shinawatra’s page was recently blocked) and Facebook a primary concern since the government admitted putting them “under thorough watch”.