Facebook/Twitter Banned In Thailand For Election

societyofrobots writes "In the run up to the July 3rd election in Thailand, use of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media are banned for campaigning and other election related purposes. Offenders face a maximum six months in prison and a 10,000 baht ($330) fine. The ban includes sending short telephone texts and forwarding emails. 'There will be a unit of more than 100 officers to monitor this,' said police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri of the social media ban. 'If we can track the origin of (an online message) right away, we will block the site and make an arrest. But if the sites are registered overseas and we can't check the origin, we'll first block it and ask the IP (Internet Protocol) providers for further investigation,' Prawut said."

Comments

Only banned during last hours before polls

[cgeys]

They did not ban the use of Twitter, Facebook and social media for election related purposes. This ban is only effect from yesterday 6 PM to today 3 PM until the polls are over. It's a cooling period before the polls, which by the way have already opened. It's so that the candidates and parties or their supporters won't do any cheating or try last minute mass campaigning. Hell, the headline made it sound like some China thing where they banned Facebook and Twitter completely. And I should know, as I live here, have a thai wife and many thai friends.

Re:Only banned during last hours before polls

[Anonymous Coward]

Same in Canada, although in our case it's so that results on the east coast aren't transmitted to the west coast, where they're still voting, until AFTER the election is actually over.

While I don't like it all that much, it's really not that onerous.

Re:Only banned during last hours before polls

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in .au it's exactly the same. In the last week (might be days?) before an election the parties are no longer allowed to advertise or campaign. Censoring a political party I see no issue with, as long as all parties are under the same restrictions.

Re:Only banned during last hours before polls

[Noughmad]

The law is to prevent candidates from claiming their opponent is a pedofile just as the voting starts, as in this case the opponent would have no time to respond to such allegations even if they can be easily proven false.

Re:Only banned during last hours before polls

[jklovanc]

All last minute campaigning is illegal. Here is the relevant section from Thailand's Electoral law http://www.elections-lebanon.org/elections/docs_6_G_8_1_14.aspx [elections-lebanon.org]
"Section 48. No person shall make an election campaign by any means, whether it may be favorable or disfavorable to any candidate or political party, from 6:00 pm of the day before the election day to the end of the election day."

outrageous!

[B3ryllium]

that is outrageous! this would never happen in a civilized country ... like Canada.

oh wait.

we do the same thing in Australia

[benengel]

see here http://www.aec.gov.au/FAQs/election_advertising.htm#blackout

"This three-day blackout effectively provides a "cooling off" period in the lead up to polling day, during which political parties, candidates and others are no longer able to purchase time on television and radio to broadcast political advertising"

This entire story and headline is slanted to portray what the thais are doing as chinese style censorship when it is nothing of the sort. Many western countries including australia do the exact same thing