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Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
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.
anti-vandalism measure - if you link to a specific revision, theres no way your readers will click through on to a page with an image of autofellatio...
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.
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)