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]

It is still censorship and a pretty stupid thing to censor at that.

Re:Only banned during last hours before polls

[shutdown -p now]

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.

Re:Only banned during last hours before polls

[MacTO]

It would constitute censorship under very limited circumstances. It would constitute censorship if new information was discovered in the final hours of the election, and it was prevented from inadvertently reaching the voter due to the blackout.

But the reality is that new information rarely pops up in those final hours. Because of that, most of the campaigning done would have more to do with manipulating the political process (e.g. presenting misinformation that the other parties cannot respond to). That sort of situation is far more dangerous to democracy than something that a few people could interpret as censorship because they see the world in black-and-white terms.

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

[X.25]

It is still censorship and a pretty stupid thing to censor at that.

In many countries election related 'advertising' (or campaigning) is prohibited for 24 hours before election starts.

No, it's not censorship.

Re:Only banned during last hours before polls

[cgeys]

Yes, it really is common in other countries too. And for a good reason. It just has been in traditional media before, because technology like internet haven't existed for long, social media even less. Other countries will most likely include social media in the, well, media category too.

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."

Re:Only banned during last hours before polls

[outsider007]

First of all, bullshit. Second of all, freedom of speech is necessary for a democracy whether the people want it or not.

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