The Cyber Scouts have been described as "reminiscent of the anticommunist, right-wing paramilitary Village Scouts of the 1970s" in that both programs are state-backed. The program was launched in December 2010 by the conservative Abhisit Vejjajiva administration, under the Thai Ministry of Justice and the Ministry for Information and Communication Technology. It was shut down in 2011 during the Yingluck Shinawatra administration, but it was reactivated by the military regime following the 2014 coup. As of 2016, 112 schools were involved, with over 120,000 members.