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."
They put half of that outrage into their domestic problems with child prostitution and pornography creation/distribution. Why, Thailand might make real progress on an issue that actually has a moral component to it.
Ministry of Information of Thailand was effectively slashdotted. Half of me says that was a plan.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
That really isn't related to this story, is it? It's just there to agitate the average /.'er into blindly raging against Thailand.
In my day, we called that kind of stuff flamebait.
You know, like how Apple sucks and everyone who owns a Mac is a faggot.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
So, how much respect for other cultures do you have? How much freedom do you grant others - to define their own morality?
I've been to Thailand. It's a great place where the king is held in very high esteem. This isn't a tyranny cracking down on opposition, almost all Thais would be very shocked to see a spray-painted picture of the king. Try a stunt like that and you'll be lucky if the police gets you before the enraged mob does.
Now let's wait for the trolls to swarm in and claim that any culture that doesn't share their own values of "First Amendment" and "Freedom of Expression" must be evil and bad. Newsflash: The "total freedom or none at all" attitude only applies to western culture. Asian cultures have more than a thousand years of experience in moderation and non-binary thinking.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The new Thiland government is quoted as saying because of all the bugs in open source software they will be installing Vista on all crucial government machines.
Who needs shades of grey? With Thailand, you can put pimps pushing 8-year olds, oppressive military dictatorships, and anti-open source people together! Finally, something to hate for everyone!
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
So am I going to get /. banned from Thailand? If I say "Hey Thailand! Your king is a doody-head!"? Will that do it?
Oh no... it's the future.
WHO CARES?
Ok so it's censorship and we should all care as we are "free." However, that wasn't really my point. This is hardly news. What do you expect from countries like this. For a place like Thailand banning YouTube is hardly their worst crime. Let's take an example from a week ago that was in the news. Main Jailed for 10 Years for Insulting King -- ok and we care about them blocking YouTube? I think there's a tons of worse things they do. Blocking YouTube is probably making them more productive if anything. Not saying it's not wrong or outrageous.. but in comparison to other things that go on there.. it most certainly is.
Here are assorted images of Thailand's king. Here's Thailand's government website. (english)
Let's show them what we and the Gimp think of them throwing people in prison for 10 years for vandalism.
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.
For some reason, Ministry of Information seems 1984-ish, so answer me this: In Thailand, do browsers also keep tabs on you too?
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.
Here in the US, it's hard for most of us to relate to why the Thai government would take this step. Their king is universally beloved by the people. Here in the West, we're used to the skewering of our political leaders and celebreties in print and on TV, but in Thailand you'd be better off insulting a man's wife than the king or queen! Just because we've arrived at the point where we respect no one and find few things worth fighting for doesn't mean that everyone else has to follow our lead.
Should a governmental body have the right to censor material that a large majority of its population finds offensive? Should Germany be allowed to block Nazi hate sites? Should China be allowed to block porn sites? Should any country be able to block material that depicts or encourages actions illegal in that country?
I lived in Thailand for a year and though I have never seen or met the king, I helped teach English at a school he funded and have been on the palace grounds where he lived many times. I can attest that the pride and admiration they have for the king runs deep and this action by the government is the equivalent of punching the guy who called your sister a slut. It may be that the whole episode is forgotten in a few days or it may create a lifelong grudge, but action to defend honor must be taken. And if you don't think defending honor is worth punching someone in the face, you're not going to understand this move by the Thai government.
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
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
Okay, now we're curious:
Enquiring minds must know! :-)
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
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)