Thai junta denies blocking Facebook

Thai soldiers stand guarding at the Victory Monument in Bangkok, Thailand Wednesday, May 28, 2014.Thailand’s new military junta aired videos Wednesday on television stations nationwide showing some of the prominent political figures it has detained as part of an effort to convince the public that detainees in army custody are being treated well.  AP

BANGKOK—The military junta in Thailand denied Wednesday it blocked access to Facebook after alarmed netizens complained about widespread accessing problem.

Colonel Sirichan Ngathong, deputy spokeswoman of the National Council for Peace and Order,  said an online media monitoring committee reported that a technical glitch at a main gateway linking Thailand’s Internet to Facebook servers abroad caused the services to be inaccessible in many parts of the country.

Sirichan said the Information and Communications Technology Ministry committee had held an urgent meeting with the Internet service providers and expected that services would resume before 5 p.m.

The services resumed at around 4:40 p.m.

NCPO deputy spokesman Colonel Winthai Sivari announced on TV  that the technical error at the gateway was the cause of the problem.

Many people found out at about 3 p.m. that they could not access their Facebook accounts, leading to speculation that the social network was blocked because it was used as a main medium to organize protests against the junta.

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