Facebook/Twitter Banned In Thailand For Election

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday July 2, 2011 @03:34PM from the can't-stop-the-signal dept.

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."

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Re:Only banned during last hours before polls by shutdown+-p+now · 2011-07-02 16:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

So, since it's only a little bit of government censorship, it's OK?

Well, yes. More generally, it's a little bit of censorship that is very limited both in time and in scope, and which has a well-defined goal that the society considers important (fair elections).
Considering that, as far as censorship goes, this is far less significant than, say, criminalizing "incitement to riot", Americans should be familiar with the overall idea.