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Thailand Bans Teen Info On the Net
Reservoir Hill writes "Internet providers in Thailand have been prohibited from disclosing personal data about anyone under the age of 18 in a way that would allow others to gain access to them — including disclosure of their age, gender, phone number, email address, chat logon name, photo, or name of their school. Violators will face six months in jail of and a fine of $1,900. Web sites have been given one month to come into compliance." The article isn't clear on whether or not the prohibition applies to foreign sites that carry information about Thai kids.
That ruins my "Wild On Bankok" video.
I don't see the problem here, I don't see any particular reason why kids should be allowed to put their contact information up on the web.
As far as I can tell, this just applies to ISPs and not necessarily to teens themselves.
Seriously, why? Does disclosing personal information of your clients classify as freedom of speech, too? Don't you think there are other risks involved?
Sorry, couldn't help it, I'm a programmer. What they need to do to encourage kids to not find ways around this is design the filter so when it senses under 18 related form data leaving the computer, it re-routes the kid to another page with a flash file of Michael Jackson saying "You're an idiot!" and kissing the screen. Now that would send em a message.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
What's with the negative spin? This sounds like a good thing; They're stopping ISPs from giving out the personal information of minors to everyone on the internet. This isn't an increase in Censorship, it's an increase in Privacy.
In America and other countries, we have laws that mandate that sex-offenders have to register as such, effectively ruining them for life. I wonder if that's the case in Thailand? There are plenty of sick bastards who would be willing to deal with the temporary consequences as long as they could continue to satisfy themselves in the future.
An interesting side note: The biz has crept into American pop culture.
Seems weird for a country who's major import is pedophiles. Maybe this is some kind of marketing strategy.
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
Now children should not be seen and not heard.
"informational self-determation" - a term coined by the german federal constitutional court - is not censorship. it means that you can decide which informations about yourself is given to other entities. the "right to privacy" is actually a subset of informational self-determination.
of course, the government isn't you and therefore should not decide which information can be (or cannot be) out there.
Does this mean that I can't put pictures of my kids on a website hosted by an ISP? I understand the privacy implications of last names and addresses, but kids pictures by themselves seems like it is going too far.
- Malcolm
they just outlawed facebook - or the thai equivalent to facebook?
I remember reading that something like 2/3 of Koreans have the equivalent to a facebook page, and I bet social networking sites are popular in thailand too.
Why laws like this need to cover an email address or a chat handle.
I can understand not wanting age, phone number, address or photo to be disclosed (because those can be used to identify someone) but how does collecting, using, storing or disclosing an email address or a chat handle violate someones privacy? (most forums I know of collect but do not display email addresses)
Is it really a surprise, when you look at who the people are that draft these laws? Is it fair of us to expect them to be in touch? Perhaps what democratic governments need is a non-political, not-for-profit group that can propose some framework for national government tech policy? They could even propose different flavours for governments with either progressive or conservative agendas. At least then we may have some body of tech legislature that is based on informed analysis of what is being regulated. Easy to say, I guess...
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Considering this protects underaged people in many ways, why not tag this "finallyprivacy" or something?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
legislation like this is coming from a country known for it's underage sex industry.
Why don't you guys work on breaking up the "tourism" that goes on in your country (which exists due to local police corruption in many cases) before you start passing unenforceable edicts on cyberspace? Kthnxbai.
Or Maybe times have changed, I don't keep up to date on the pedophile scene.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
As this is in the news, I'm pretty sure it's been filtered and cleaned up to make it look good. My hope is that it does just this and makes every effort to protect children and doesn't have some attached agenda in it. Otherwise this sounds like a solid law to help protect the children.
On another note, does anyone have access to the wording of the complete law, I am very interested in reading all it has to say.
The poor are the ones in the sex industry, not the wealthy and middle class who are the relative few with net access. This is an effort to protect those middle and upper class kids. As the Roman Senate said in History of the World, Part I, "**** the poor!" Actually, that was how it was said in the censored for TV version. It really confused my friend until he saw the original, several years later.
read my post at http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=369821&cid=21468323 .
this was only the first display of anonymous' power, i suggest.
/b/ take will have taken over several other countries. and then those who break rules 1 and 2 will be the first to the wa- OH SHIT.
my prediction: in a few years moot & the anonymous army of
Who gives a shit about pervs. Thai women are beautiful and exotic. I think the cutest in Asia. Hell the ones 40 years old look like they are 30. And they love older Western men. So I would say the major import is Western men looking for a woman >18 years old.
My little sister listed her age on Myspace as 17 when she was 14. Need I say more? After seeing that, I'm all for this legislation. I'd even like to see the children themselves held responsible: they don't seem to be held accountable for their own actions at all these days.
God I feel old saying that. I'm only 30, I swear!
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
For gods sake, he is a ham radio operator, HS1A. But I think other people actually control the country and make the laws. But he is revered by most all in Thailand as he put much effort into helping his people.
Seriously. They just made the olsen twins website, Disney, and any other website containing a picture of a child illegal.
Morons.
The Internet censorship in Thailand is back in full force too, and all this happened right after Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia criticized the Thai government for Internet censorship during his keynote speech at the ICT Expo in Thailand earlier this month.
Hahaha! Chinese? Ok. Japanese? mm, usually OK. Korean? Sure. Thai? You're smokin' crack.
If this is used as a way to crack down on myspace, it seems pretty silly. If it's used to crack down on mail-order bride operations and online sex activities involving girls under 18, it makes a lot of sense. A brothel offering underage girls for sale--or video sessions with online clients--might fall under the category.
My company is in the top 50 sites in Thailand, and we're popular with teens....
I guess that means extra work for us, sorry kids, but I can't get home for christmas
Parts of Thailand's economy is fairly reliant on Western (Primarily Australian and European) and Asian tourist dollars. The tourist industry is eager to get rid of the paedophile stigmata which mostly seems to come from North America these days, as I said earlier Thailand is a popular tourist destination for families, couples and singles alike in Australia mainly due to the fact that a two week holiday in Thailand is cheaper than most one week holidays in Australia.
Having recently been to Phuket I can say that the place family friendly, well most of it. The sex industry is based around the town of Patong (most of the family resorts are in Kata and Karon) more specifically Bangla Road. There are also several pre-existing laws to discourage paedophiles, for example the minimum legal age to work in bars is 20 (the legal drinking age is also 20 so under-age girls cant get into nightclubs to solicit). I wouldn't be surprised if their tourist industry had a hand in this, Thai's are not over-reactionary "think of the children" type people, they are a kind, easy going people who are very difficult to offend due to a majority Buddhist population, heck even the Thai Muslims are difficult to offend (losing your temper is considered a sign of a poor upbringing in Thailand so it is very rarely that a Thai will lose their temper) so US style "think of the children" scare politics very rarely work.
The regular tourist industry is Thailand's main import, although there is still a large sex industry which does attract a lot of single western (as well as Asian) men (when I was there the majority of western men were under 40). If you walk around during the day, even down bangla road you wont find many sex workers, just restaurants, shops and stalls only a few bars are open and these only cater to those who are looking for a drink.
From personal experience I can tell you that it is fairly difficult for a westerner (farang) to judge a Thai girls age and this tends to go in both directions, some Thai's who look 20 may only be 16 but a lot of Thai's who look about 20-22 will be 26-28.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
this argumentation is doomed to fail, an arbitrary limit for maturity is stupid. actually, i know a sizeable number of people who would not fit into this scheme - for example, roughly a third of my former classmates.
... why are people allowed to vote even if they don't know shit about the voting system ? clearly, this has something to do with abuse of power - maybe you could cut that out if this kind of knowledge would be teached free of cost and you could apply for the "voting maturity" test an infinite amount of times.
== first, sexual maturity ==
i know girls who were sexual before being 12 (even before having their period). not all of them fully knew what they were doing - to hear "you can always put it out" from a slightly stupid girl is probably a huge turn-off for a young boy with some knowledge in biology - but they were able to articulate their sexual needs and act upon them, so they clearly were sexual mature.
a solution would be more sex ed. really, on what grounds should one forbid two persons who know what they are doing some act, if it is consentual? non-consentual sex is already prohibited (rape, anyone ?). also, teen pregnancy is no argument with proper sex-ed (sorry, radical christfags).
== second, intellectual maturity ==
i went to a boarding school for "gifted" pupils, so i know quite a number of people who are seen (and see themselves) as "brighter" than the average person. we had to take a test at eigth grade to get there. after some time i came to the conclusion that you usually cannot compare "real-world" intellect at all. nearly all of them were somehow good at tests, yet many lacked "real world" skills and could not solve unusual problems (the real world is not your textbook example) due to lack of imagination.
on the other side, i know people who can keep up with daily tasks, are definitely not mentally retarded, but just stupid and / or disinterested. my little brother, for example, killed the microwave due to profound lack of skill and didn't even notice it due to watching TV. when my little sister (5 years old at that incident) woke everyone up (smoke + sleeping people => bad) we headed for the garden. my sister wanted to know why that happened, my brother didn't want to know.
wait, my brother is 16 years old. my sister was 5 and could recall the outlines of "how a microwave works" half a year later (in before shitty explaination). to top that, there is this "gifted" girl i know, nearly the same age as my brother, but indefinitely more intelligent and also, wise - she probably was smarter than him when she was 15. should he have more rights based on age? hint: my brother did apparently not become more intelligent or knowledgeable in the last two years and probably never will.
a solution to this problem could be mandatory tests for everyone to get certain "dangerous" rights. nearly every country has this for driving a car - you must proove you understood the rules, regardless of age. so
here in Germany, we have the "Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung" (translate as something like "federal central for political education"), which has the job to teach citizens on how the state works (it certainly isn't government propaganda) - you can order the German Constitution and many informational texts on local and global political issues at low cost (like shipping only), for example. in my opinion, every citizen should know how stuff works(TM); is imperative for a society with the goal of its citizens being free individuals.
== third, emotional maturity ==
this is by far the easiest to answer. i know people who were emotionally stable in a very young age. also i know people who are absolutely not stable. when i talked to emotionally unstable persons, many of them (6 or so), cried at
also, why is this modded "insightful" and not "funny" or "troll" ?
[1] http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bush+blair+lies+iraq+war&btnG=Search
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comical_ali
first, here in germany, 14 would be legal - it's the age of consent.
second, you sister's sex life is none of your bizness, srsly.
third, you, kind sir, are probably a control freak.
Fucking losers and your dial-a-bride mentality. If you want a maid you can fuck, at least hire a hooker from your own country. If you pay her enough she'll take your shit and pretend to like it. She'll only ditch you like a bad smell when the money stops.
Any UK government officials in Thailand had better make sure that their diplomatic immunity is watertight: they just potentially published 7.5 million children's names, birthdays and addresses along with those of the parents.
This is an obvious and needed effort on the government's part to crack down on child prostituion and sex slavery. You can market your kids online with these new networking groups, which are breeding grounds for pedophiles even in this country. This is the first move in beginning to get things under control in the Asian child sex trade.
A lot of people in Thailand get raped and even people in their 25s can be really naive about the realities of life. The first thing you have to understand about a country like Thailand is that they are a lot more stricter then a western country when it comes to their children.
They're very protective over their children compared to the west where they can do what they want. Most children in their 25+ still live with their parents and are home before 9 pm. You live with your parents until you're married. If your girlfriend visits she sleeps with your mother while you sleep with your father, just to make sure nothing happens.
A child's actions reflect on the parent. If a child behaves badly it is because they have bad parents. If someone in your family were to argue outside your house in Thailand the whole neighbourhood will be talking about the incident and judging you. If you were to make your parents cry it's the worse thing that you could do and you will go to Buddhist hell.
It's not wrong, it's just different. I'd compare it to the 40's or 50's in western countries I guess.
The article is so short that I can't help but be confused by the OP subject line. Does this law restrict ISPs from selling teens' demographic information to advertisers, or does it restrict all websites from hosting (and displaying) any personal information about teens? If it's a restriction on ISPs, then don't we have some similar child protection laws in the US with the age being 13? I don't see the problem with a law that limits marketing to children, or marketing of children. If it's a restriction on the kids themselves posting their information, I think that's a bad idea.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
Better than this.
OSx86 FTW
Thailand has a thriving child sex industry. But posting teenager's info online is illegal? So it's legal to pay to have sex with teens, but it is not legal to post the information about the other teens in you class online? They need to get their priorities straight. And no, I am not trolling. If you don't think Thailand has a thriving teen whore industry, google it for yourself.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
From when I was only 14 years old I was maintaining my own websites, including e-commerce sites, I was developing my own shareware games and I was promoting them, I was also maintaining forums and mailing lists, and I was also publishing/selling articles and short scifi stories to magazines (and I was also trying to publish my scifi in book form by approaching publishers, but I failed in this, because publishers did not believe in teenage authors). Giving out some contact info, carefully, was required.
They need to get agressive about this. Thailand appears to be on the rise economically, and they must shed themselves of a reputation as an extreme sex tourism destination. It won't happen overnight. When you have poverty and wealth (especially out of town wealth) side by side, corruption, gangs, and prostitution are going to be hard to stop.
... by myself" was full of shit.
You don't have to go into the red light areas to get a sense of the scale of prostitution there. They have already made prostitution illegal (and possibly even strip clubs?), but they still haven't figured out how to enforce the law without crushing tourism. The underage prostitution is just the worst end of it. As a start, they need to start executing people (including foreigners) who pick up prostitutes that are obviously children. I assumed that every guy I met there that said "I'm going around looking at Buddhas
The motel I was in took my passport number, and I could see them fast forwarding through the hallway camera footage, looking for people bringing women into their rooms. The nice hotel staff were kicking a couple of hookers to the curb when I checked in. On Friday night, westerners were discretely passing out little flyers that insinuated that the innocuous looking night club in front of me had some strippers inside. On Saturday morning, I woke up to the sound of some guy having one more go with his friday night prize. It is not only the tourists that are engaging in this activity, but the number of tourists coming to Thailand for prostitution is abnormally high.
To really understand how much of it is out there, all you have to do is walk into a bar and talk to the nice ladies... the ones that are just uhh... sitting around playing tool, watching tv, and asking you to buy them drinks. The traffic cop outside didn't notice anything unusual going on, and just helps the guys with their new thai girlfriends coming out of the bar to cross the street.
you are certainly misunderstanding me (maybe on purpose ?): i was arguing for intellectual maturity. sexual maturity is easy - if they have these urges and act upon it, they are sexually mature. it is a matter of fact, therefore no license necessary. sex ed is taught here in school, it was part of the curriculum of biology when i was in secondary school. see, no problem.
actually laws should be as clear as possible. whenever a law is undefined, it goes against the idea of the modern constitunional state ("Rechtsstaat", as we call it in Germany), as it opens the door to selective enforcement (you describe it, even), ergo discrimination and tyranny (which certainly is bad). due process can only be guaranteed if laws are as clear as possible. this is why minimum and maximum sentences are codified into law.
you know that in Germany "hacker tools" were banned ? the problem is, "hacker tools" were not defined in the law. now every security reasearcher, student of informational technology, even users of GNU in Germany have a big problem: they don't know if their deeds are legal or not. this leads to widespread confusion, inefficiency and opens the door up to selective enforcement against critics (of the government or a corporation). in an unclear legal climate this is certainly possible - with clearly worded laws it is not.
you keep saying this, that full intellectual maturity is required to have sex and understand the consequences. i suggest it isn't that hard: when i was 12, i had grasped the concept of teenage pregnancies ruining lifes due to sex ed in school and most classmates had no problem grasping this. ask several 10-year-olds if having a child of their own might be a good idea, then consider your words again.
i don't think government or anyone should limit any persons who understand what they are doing, regardless of age - except if one affected person does not agree. to make it clear, i do not think German cannibal Armin Meiwes [1] did anything wrong: if media reports are correct, the person he ate wanted to be eaten, even urged Meiwes to bite his penis off ! according to the media, Meiwes videotaped everything (no one knows why, though). so in the end Meiwes didn't just kill a person, he actively searched for one who consented. if all this is true, i don't think he would be a threat to society, therefore doesn't need to be punished.
Germany has an age of consent of 14.
Great Britain has an age of consent of 16.
Germany has a teen pregnancy birth rate of 13.1 per 1000 women aged 15 to 19. [2]
Germany has a teen pregnancy abortion rate of 5.3 per 1000 women aged 15 to 19. [2]
Great Britain has a teen pregnancy birth rate of 30.8 per 1000 women aged 15 to 19. [2]
Great Britain has a teen pregnancy abortion rate of 21.3 per 1000 women aged 15 to 19. [2]
so there seem to be almost 3 times teens giving birth and 4 times teen aborting their unborn children in Great Britain than in Germany despite the age of consent being lower. empirical facts seem to contradict your speculation that a lower age of consent would make the situation regarding teen pregnancies worse.
as laymans, we can not explain this. maybe it's due to the some aspects of sex ed or the social system in Germany. seve
Nice of them to want to protect teens, but the first step if they REALLY wanted to accomplish this would be to arrest the many many bar owners who employ teens as prostitutes.
to make it clear:
i do not propose a sex permit.
it was just an illustration to show how limits are regulated when it actually comes to skill.
i think kids should be sexually educated and free to choose when or how to have sex with whom. on what grounds should one forbid two consenting persons something they both want ?
lol, captcha was "immature".
parent post is mine. also read http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=369821&cid=21474179
You actually think they like you?
Yeah, that's it: Thai women are really attracted to short, pudgy, balding white guys stuck in some dead-end, part time, low-level IT job.
Keep telling yourself that it's not just a way for them to escape their current hellish existence and acquire an American shopping mall lifestyle.
Good luck with that. I'll send you a pity ecard when she gets her permit, cleans out your account and runs off with a much better-looking and successful guy than you.
L. O. L.
"...including disclosure of their age, gender..."
Six months of jailtime for disclosing someone's gender seems a bit extreme to me.
If there's to be a ban on details and pictures of under-18's, does this mean that web sites with information about the Thai royal family won't be allowed to mention Prince Dipangkara Rasmijoti's age and display his photograph? (He's under 18.)