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Volunteer 'Cyber Scouts' Censor Web In Thailand
societyofrobots writes "Since the military coup of 2006, Thailand's media freedoms have continually been downgraded. A growing tactic among the ruling elite is to accuse the political opposition of insulting the king, allowing for censorship and political imprisonment of those who dare speak out. In 2010, web censorship began to reach the scales of China and Iran. Now, Thailand has formed a group of volunteers called Cyber-Scouts to patrol the web looking for comments deemed to insult the monarchy. AFP also has a video."
Bhumibol Adulyadej likes horse cocks.
there we go.
now slashdot will be nice and invisible from Thailand.
The King is playing a difficult game. If he too blatantly uses his reserve powers to bash the current leadership, he risks, regardless of how popular he is, undermining the Monarchy itself, which as you point out, is about the only defense the Thai people have against the current regime. As much as people so often decry monarchies in the modern age, they serve the purpose of depriving the government of the day of ultimately executive power, and because the succession is, to a very large degree, beyond political interference, the government has little capacity to get a friendly chief executive.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
In Thailand everyone has very high respect for the king. Practically every business has his picture on the wall and he is celebrated many times of year. And it's not just made up stuff, the people really do love and respect him. That's why, for example, if you drop a coin you should never stop it with your foot because that would make you stomp on the kings picture and it will be considered really rude by everyone who sees it. With so much respect from all the people, I don't think there is anything the king can do for it to be really insulting. Not that I think he would ever try.
That being said, the king almost never takes part in any political issue. It's for the government to handle, not the king. That's why neither side, not even the red shirts, will insult the king. He doesn't have any part in it and despite the internal conflicts, everyone loves the king. If someone really is insulting him, it's not for political reasons and hence can't be censoring political speech either.
No it's not even unofficially accepted. You go to jail for a long time if police catches you.