Slashdot Mirror
Thailand Bans YouTube
An anonymous reader writes "The new government of Thailand that forced its way into power last year has banned the website YouTube after a 44 second clip was found of someone spray painting on a picture of Thailand's king. When Google refused to remove the 'offending' clip the website was redirected to a different page. This comes days after a Swiss man was jailed 10 years for spray painting on pictures of the king while drunk, and is the same government that earlier this year slammed open source software for being useless and buggy."
A lot of people seem to be unaware of how medeival Thailand is when it comes to morality. Why, just recently a beautiful Thai college student and actress got in a lot of trouble because the dress she wore was too revealing! (obligatory hot pix here)
I mean, that's why people go there, right? Well the food too, but it's really the lady-boys. I hear it's a hot spot for various radio personalities.
Lady boys... But mostly perverts who like the child sex slaves.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Story links to an archived version of the Wikipedia page. What's going on there? Here is the current version
"When Google refused to remove the 'offending' clip the website was redirected to a different page"
Oh by the way I'm in Thailand right now and YouTube isn't redirecting anywhere - it's just failing. (ISP is TTTMaxnet.)
Anyone who has been to Thailand can tell you that Thais are some of the most friendly, inviting people on the planet. The country is often dubbed the "Land of Smiles" and isn't even a reference to the sex trade, for which they are also famous. Thailand is called the Land of Smiles because people are always smiling at each other. They could be in the middle of an intense negotiation or even an argument, but they are always smiling.
However, there is an exception. In Thailand, you do not insult the King. I repeat, you do not insult the King.
If you do insult the King (yes, spraypainting a mustache on him is insulting), those always-smiling Thais will stop smiling, gouge your eyes out, rip you limb from limb, slit your throat from ear to ear, and rip out all of your internal organs. When the police arrive, they will help the mob, and everyone from the police to the ambulance driver to the attending physician to the coroner to the undertaker will all swear that you died of a sudden heart attack.
I am not kidding about this. Thais take their King very seriously.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I lived in Bangkok , Thailand for 4 years a long time ago.
Thailand is a Constitutional Monarchy, but it is ruled by
a Military group. There have been dozens of bloodless coups
over the years.
There IS NO FORCING THEIR WAY TO POWER, the various Military
people take TURNS running the government. Hence the bloodless
coups. Pull your head out of your asses and learn about what
you speak about.
Thailand is always taking the 'conservative' position to help
impress other countries. Such is life in the real world.
If you read the papers there, you will see that they regularly do bust child sex tourists. These folks are spending a long time in Thai jail.
You can go to Thailand and pay to have sex with as many Thai prostitutes who look like they're 12 but are really 25 as you want. However, it is a really bad idea to try to engage in actual child prostitution there. Thai jail is someplace that you really, really do not want to be.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
As an offtopic aside, "Female Circumcision" is a misnomer. That is actually a name for the operation of removing the clitoral hood, which is done in certain cases for valid medical reasons. The term for removal of the clitoris is "clitoridectomy" (although even THAT term is sometimes used for removal of only the hood.) There are also other types of female genital mutilation.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I lived in Thailand for seven years, and I'm trying to come up with an analogy for the slashdot crowd, (because that's how slashdotters communicate).
It's kind of like that a-hole Phelps character with his god-hates-fags rallies at soldier's funerals. Insulting the King in Thailand is that inflammatory. I told my (Thai) wife about this yesterday, and she couldn't sleep that night, and was trying to find this clip on YouTube in a righteous rage. (couldn't find it). It's hard for westerners to grasp the concept of a powerful person who is universally beloved, without cynicism.
I feel absolutely no sympathy with that Swiss idiot who spray-painted the King's picture. He's 50 years old, lived in Thailand for 10 years. He knew what he was doing. He got drunk, and decided to be 16 again. Imagine if a drunk vandal went around spraypainting the grave stone of your Grandfather.
In the end this will be a tempest in a tea-pot, as the king will most assuredly pardon the man, and he'll be kicked out of the country to go to back home. The king has publicly come out and said what a silly law the lesse-majesty law is, and how he is not above criticism, and how he welcomes people to tell him what they think.
However the law stands, because the Thai's they love them some King.
According to The Register the video's poster pulled the video. An interesting quote from the article: Sitthichai bemoaned: "We have told them [Google] how deeply offended Thais were by the clip, but they said there was much worse ridicule of President Bush on the site and they kept that there. I don't think they really care how we feel. Thailand is only a tiny market for them."
"but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
For the most part, you don't do the soliciting. They approach you, get you to buy them a drink, get you to drink a lot, and then suggest that you go to a hotel (which is likely owned by their family). At which point you're 1) too drunk to care or 2) too horny to care how much you're paying for the hotel room, which is likely inflated for your stay.
As the American Embassy says to all staff visiting Thailand for the first time: If you find yourself in a bar chatting up a girl who is WAY out of your league, chances are it's a man.
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
You're about 10 years behind what's happening in the real world. Thailand even extradites convicted pedophiles to their home country now.
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
Outrage? Quite possible. But you would be physically safe, and your punishment, if any, would be for the crime of vandalism which would probably result in having to clean up your mess, possibly do some community service, and if they really were out to get you then you might spend a very short time in jail.
Compare to a decade in prison and banning an entire web site.
Can you see the differences in responses here?
It's fine to get upset at what somebody says. It's not fine to take it to the point of violence or long-term imprisonment or censorship.