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Thailand Cracks Down On Twitter, Facebook, Etc.
An anonymous reader writes "The ongoing poitical turmoil in Thailand has inspired the country's Ministry of Information, Computers, and Telecommunications to issue a stern warning that all users of the Internet in Thailand must 'use the internet in the right way or with appropriate purpose and avoid disseminating information that could create misunderstanding or instigate violent actions among the public', that 'all popular websites and social networks such as facebook, twitter, hi5 and my space [sic] will be under thorough watch,' and that 'Violators will be prosecuted by law with no compromise.' Thailand has draconian anti-lèse majesté laws which are routinely abused in order to settle political scores and silence dissent, and recently implemented a so-called 'Computer Crimes Act' which appears to be almost solely focused on thoughtcrimes and censorship, rather than dealing with, you know, actual crime. Several Web forums have recently been shut down, their operators charged because they failed to delete 'harmful posts' quickly enough to suit the Thai authorities."
China has been trying to censor the internet for years to dissuade it's population from rebelling. I recall an earlier post today that basically indicates that the more the government tries to oppress freedom of speech, the more clever those with drive will become to avoid such measures. I feel somewhat sorry for Thailand citizens, who will end up paying for an ultimately futile goal.
Awesome food, bad government, traps, and Sagat. What haven't you given to the world??
Living With a Nerd
The worst thing about censorship on the Internet is [REDACTED].
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
My little brother is down in thailand now, and i want to e-mail him on this but am afraid to raise any red flags down there. I wonder when our government is going to try this in a national emergency, i am not trying to be a tinfoil hat guy. It does seem like something once done, its gone forever the true freedom of the internet.
How long before someone creates another Internet where "The Man" can't go and fuck it up?
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They just don't want to have all their peoples tweets stored in the Library of Congress.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
"actual crime"
If it's declared criminal in that jurisdiction, it's a crime. Whether it's morally right or wrong is dependent on your society.
I'm not saying I like it, but I'll respect Thailand's right to govern itself. If the people don't like it, revolt/leave/commit suicide. A leader without followers is just a person.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I'm sure there's a tool out there that will tweet your browsing history.
Ya, but the developers soon found it's NSFW.
I've been following this closely as I have a personal connection to Thailand and was last there a couple of months ago, and checking out all the stuff that's been posted online (mainly photos and videos since my Thai is rather poor).
There's an obvious reason why they're cracking down - there really is rampant misinformation being spread. The stuff that gets published almost always includes commentary by whoever posted it which blames one side or the other based on what they say is concrete evidence that their photos or video provide... yet if you look at the stuff, it's obvious it's just wild speculation at best and purposeful stretching of the truth (misinformation) at worst. It's really, really bad. Foreigners are especially bad because they mostly don't fully understand the situation and accept "evidence" at face value.
The main thing that's being contended right now is whether or not the Thai army troops fired live rounds (rather than rubber ones) into the red-shirt protesters (who are unarmed), thus being the cause of the deaths. Most of the videos claim to prove that they are, but there is absolutely no evidence in *any* of the videos that this is the case.
The interesting thing is that there *is* evidence of a third group (labeled as terrorists by the government) who are the ones inciting violence... sniping people from both sides from up on buildings, and so on. There's even a video that shows someone's head getting shot off a few feet away - literally, the brain is lying on the sidewalk and the top half of the head is missing. It's clear they weren't shot by the army, because their assault rifles wouldn't have done that.
Crazy stuff! It will be really interesting to see what follows. Based on how the Thai government operates, this "ban" shouldn't actually stop the flow of information coming out of Thailand, especially since a lot of it is coming from foreigners.
You are right that censorship in general doesn't exactly have a track record of success, but you are comparing 2 very different situations (Thailand vs China)
You may not be aware of it, but Thailand is currently undergoing something between mass civil disorbedience to a a full-scale revolution. They declared state of emergency (which bans the gathering of 5 or more people, among other things) and deploying soldiers in the capital, soldiers are firing live rounds in addition to tear gas and the typical crowd control devices, and protesters have stormed parliament buildings and news station among other thing. It isn't civil war yet but it definitely is a crisis. The present level of censorship is meant as a short-term measure to weaken the protesters' ability to organize and spread information during what is essentially a combat zone.
Personally, between the government is banning any gathering of people and taking news stations off the airwaves and armies being deployed and armed clashes with hundreds of people dead or injured, there is a bigger issue than some forums being shutdown.
This seems to be an awfully biased post. Too bad the author is not aware of the current problems in Thailand. Red shirts are spreading hate and fear to further their destructive cause to uneducated people in an attempt to create havoc, and overthrow the government. But hey, who cares what happens as long as people have their precious Facebook, right?
At all.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
Err, yeah, but there's a world of difference between "punching a senator" in the face, and cracking jokes about him. Sorry, but that's just a ridiculous comparison and makes no sense.
And let's not spread fallacies here - the Lese Majeste law isn't really about threats, but also about anything that's considered disparaging in general. It's about violating the *dignity* of a sovereign or head of state.
Quite frankly, I'm going to get out there and say I think it's just plain ridiculous, and shows how backward and outdated Thailand is (and before you cry claims of racism, racism, my family is from SE Asia). I can make a website senatorconroy-is-an-idiot.com.au, and put anything I want there (within reason, of course - say, no child porn or hate speech), and nobody's going to be kicking down any doors.
I mean, look at this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/6498119/Student-throws-shoe-at-former-Australian-PM-John-Howard.html
Some hippy idiot throws a shoe at John Howard. Admittedly, the man's throwing abilities is an embarrassment to aussies everywhere, but even then, Howard laughs it off, and says "he's never be on my team (i.e. cricket). Even George Bush brushed off the whole shoeing thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoeing
With your second point, I have no love for Thaksin, but I don't really find him much worse than any of the other tin-pot dictators in the region. And the last few leaders in Thailand have all been outsed for corruption or various other crimes. Sorry, but basically, they're all wrong, ok, so trying to paint the current regime as anything other than militarily-imposed dictatoriship is just dishonest.
Cheers, Victor
Are you referring to Bumiputera?
So who are these 20 people that were killed?
Well 5 were soldiers that were killed from gunshot wounds by the protesters that you're so quick to label as "protesters".
Lets see, what other bullshit are you spreading... oh the "crack down on free speech". You mean like your free speech? It seems to be more a crackdown on lying in my opinion. One which you demonstrate necessary so well.
Who are these protesters and what are they doing? Well they're the loud minority who want the old corrupt prime minister back in power so they can receive rewards for doing so. They have been paid to protest and there are videos on them proving it. Not that it needs proving because no one denies it.
They've done nothing but cause violence since they came to bangkok. Just go on youtube and type "red shirt violence" and see for yourself.
don't rape
don't steal
etc.
that's morality, and its universal. there are edge conditions: "women shouldn't behave immodestly" for example, that has all sorts of interpretations according to local customs from the netherlands to saudi arabia
however, i would assert to you that the only morally and defensible point of view for frsming ANY opinion or morality is a global one. not that enough people do nowadays, unfortunately
yes, most people only talk about their morality from a point of view of ethnic or nationalistic or religious chauvinism: "in the muslim world, we don't..." "in america, we don't..." "true russians don't...." followed by some moral observation that, by implication, says outside the borders of that subset of people, there is only immorality and barbarism. this kind of exclusionary thinking, in turn, becomes the ROOT CAUSE of suffering and injustice, and is in a sense, a form of immorality
in other words, yes, there is a sense of universal morality. and it is absolutely a superior basis for judgment and thought than: 1. no morality at all, or 2. morality based on random tribal subsets of people
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
>Thailand has draconian anti-lèse majesté laws which are routinely abused in order to settle political scores
Like religions in the passed....these laws are made so the enforcers can more easily manipulate situations to be controllable
and get a desired outcome.....how many times have we heard the old speech, in order to control someone by using their
beliefs against them in order to maintain their awareness that they could be doing something wrong and have consequences.
Remember, don't turn on a red light or you will get a ticket, except now in the province, you are allowed to turn on a red light with same way traffic..except how many people are still not comfortable doing it, so they stay there instead.....making traffic back up for no reason except their own ignorance. If the people in Thailand wanted to , they could revolt and force their government to do what they want them to, on sheer volume alone, except they (we) have been so manipulated into these small situations again and again that it becomes standard to not challenge what is being said, no matter how silly.....
Thai man> /spits on the floor /feels like he did something wrong and leaves before doing anything else wrong...
Thai Officer> you will not spit on the floor or else it might be considered an act of treason by defacing our streets with your
spit...making you a traitor to this country, now move along or face my wrath, you wrongdoer.
Thai man>
why does this for some reason make it suspect or inadequate?
mankind makes all sorts of things that don't exist in the natural world: houses, clothes, guns, rocket ships, etc. the rules defining how he treats other humans is one of those things he simply makes up, and it simply works, and it simply improves his life, as much as that house, clothes, etc
of course morality is imperfect. who cares? its still better than no morality or ethnically/ nationalistically/ religiously based forms of chauvinistic morality
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
11 of the dead have been determined to have died from rubber bullets. Some of the others were police, shot with real bullets. Yeah, the Thais generally hate the police, and not without good reason.
Put identity in the browser.
Thaksin took corruption to new levels. He was the richest man in Thailand before he got elected (basically buying the election -- not too difficult when a vote costs two beers), but then pretty much doubled his wealth while in office due to corruption. That's a lot of corruption.
The king of Thailand shouldn't even be in this discussion at all, really. He's just a figurehead with no real power over anything in the constitutional monarchy. Unfortunately, he's being used as a talking point by both sides.
Thailand's in some deep shit right now. These kinds of wounds don't heal easily.
Put identity in the browser.
in the distant past, and even today in some places, you go to the next valley over or the next island over, and they speak a totally different language and have totally different customs
however, imperial centers arose: rome, moscow, beijing, etc., and through military might normalized all these different areas into one cohesive national culture and religion
now, we live in an age of jet air travel and the internet
so extrapolate the process forward: all of muslimness, christianness, russianness, chineseness, indianness, americanness, etc... its all going to get melted together into just humanness
of course, that will take a LONG time. but such a world will be far superior and have far more real morality and justice than the one we live in now
in the meantime, myself, i will consider the global point of view the only intellectually and morally coherent point of view possible, on all issues. superior in all ways to a muslim/ christian/ russian/ chinese/ american/ etc. point of view others may have but is in reality only a fragment of the only one true universal human morality: humanism
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Isn't that simple enough? It's just the law. Can you do Nazi in France or Germany? or child porn in the USA.
> So who are these 20 people that were killed? Well 5 were soldiers that were killed from gunshot wounds by the protesters that you're so quick to label as "protesters".
And 15 were killed by troops that the government originally claimed shot only tear gas and rubber bullets...
> Who are these protesters and what are they doing?
People who'd sincerely like to know and hear it themselves can't - because the government is censoring them.
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2010/04/16/the-embassy-and-the-abc/#more-9112
Foreigners are especially bad because they mostly don't fully understand the situation and accept "evidence" at face value.
But this can't happen! Schools teach critical thinking! >:(