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In Praise of the King: 1.7M Social Media Comments In Thailand
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Prachatai.com: "Thailand's Rangers Task Force 45, in response to Army policy, has put its troops to the task of promoting and protecting the monarchy in cyber space, claiming to have posted 1.69 million comments on webboards and social media during a 4-month period of last year ... According to the video clip, the Army Chief has approved the establishment of an army internet network to promote and protect the monarchy by monitoring websites and webboards which have content alluding to the monarchy and countering them by posting comments which worship the institution. ...The unit's military operations personnel provide the troops with information, or what to post, and set them targets for the number of posts they must complete."
His Majesty King Bhumibol is the most respected one! The monarchy brings great glory to Thailand! Long live the King!
Sounds more like a dictatorship. I don't know why I'm surprised by this, but I really am. I mean some presidents have been dictators, some prime ministers, some emperors and, of course, some kings. I guess I didn't realise that kings that actually held power still existed (there's no such thing as emperors any more for example).
we have Media Matters Action Network, NBC, NPR, the Washington Post, the AP, and the New York Times for this.
I, for one, welcome our new 50 Cent Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party Overlords (Thailand Branch).
Retweeting Private Ryan.
And yet that made sense to someone in their military.
I guess they can do what he wants.
It's one thing to require the troops to sing the king's praises. It's another to criminalize people who might justly criticize the king. From what I (might mis)remember, he's a popular king. But that doesn't mean every Thai likes him.
Stuff like this makes me wary of him though.
"To stop the terrorists."
The King of Thailand has long had an officially-backed, and in early years American-assisted, cult of personality. It's illegal to criticise the king in Thailand, and hundreds of people are convicted of insulting the King every year, and in many cases thrown in jail for extended periods of time.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I'd hate to see the money funding that going to, for instance, HIV/AIDS awareness so that maybe some day Thailand won't have the highest HIV infection rate in Asia. Good job, King Ramalamading-dong!
once you have their souls, their hearts and minds will follow.
I propose their name be the butthurt squad.
Judging by his embarrassing fuckface, Bhumibol Adulyadej Ramadhibodi Chakrinarubodin Sayamindaradhraj Boromanatbophit loves gerbilling and practices it avidly.
Too bad he won't end like all bad monarchs deserve.
70% of Obama's twitter followers are fake and paid for.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/fashion/twitter-followers-for-sale.html?_r=0
You can do that?!? Wow, I guess their economy really does rely heavily on prostitution.
Blank until
The Thai king is a douchebag and a giant piece of dogshit, and he sucks balls.
The Thai king has repeatedly voiced his displeasure at the cases of people being prosecuted for speaking their mind. His only failing is that he hasn't been more forceful with those elements of the government who keep on persecuting those who do.
we just get audited by the IRS.
Meh. Hire some Russian dudes to write a KingBot and install it on compromised workstations. They'll praise the crap out of your ruler. 1.7 million? Chicken feed.
Yep, and his PRISM program and his 3 month deal with Verizon
Long live Emperor Obama !!
I fart in king Bhumibol's general direction. His mother was a binturong and his father smelt of durians.
Circumcision is child abuse.
The Thais are just copying the last Obama campaign.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
It reminds me of the comments that understand my frustration with unusable things, but personally find that Windows 8 is an incredibly usable operating system and I just don't understand how usable it truly is.
maybe they can come help us in Afghanistan.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Like a king.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Welcome Task Force 45! How does it feel to know that you've actively contributed to keeping your nation the whorehouse of southeast asia?
The Thai king is a douchebag and a giant piece of dogshit, and he sucks balls.
The Thai king has repeatedly voiced his displeasure at the cases of people being prosecuted for speaking their mind. His only failing is that he hasn't been more forceful with those elements of the government who keep on persecuting those who do.
Then why doesn't he do something about it, being the king and all?
..and it's been going on for years. I posted about the false-flag terrorist operation September 11th 2001 in a Norwegian forum. Some guy sent me a private message there asking for more details about what I knew about it. I gave him a specially crafted link to one of my webservers and it was interesting, but not very shocking, to see this "17 year student" visiting from IP 158.112.84.2 - which belongs to the Norwegian military. I suspect most countries has a disinformation / "cyperspace" unit. It's all jolly to talk about how they do this in Thailand here in the west, but cyberwar and torture of people who write "wrong things" on the Internet, like Norway does on a regular basis, is apparently not newsworthy in the "free" western world.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
What a huge waste of money regardless of your feelings towards the king.
Then why doesn't he do something about it, being the king and all?
Because, like many other contemporary monarchs, he is head of state not head of government; he is kept around only because he has no real power.
pacifism is compliance
Nothing like some good old-fashioned astroturfing!
Let's take a step back for a second and just accept that other countries have different cultures and in the case of Thailand, the monarchy is actually very respected by a large portion of the population because the king, unlike many other monarchs, is not only quite well educated but really did a lot for his country and his people. Not only has Thailand never been a Western colony, they only started to open more towards the West and Western culture at around the turn of the 20th century. To top that off, "democracy" has so far been more of a process in Thailand for a lot of reasons.
What you are seeing now and saw a few years back in the riots and rapid changes of government is essentially a struggle between the old and dying benevolent constitutional monarchy which still had a lot of power and the new ultra-capitalistic push for power of none other than Thaksin Shinawatra; he has been challenging the king these last years, something that has pretty much not happened before. Thaksin likes to present himself as a "humble" down-to-earth man, yet he is by far the richest and one of the most powerful man of the country and it is safe to assume he did not get to that height without bodies in his cellar; some of those he was convicted for and had to stay in exile.
There were no wrong-doings by the monarchy prior to the military coup but Thaksin was pushing for power with TRT to grow his huge business empire at that time and buying voters and that's when through the monarch the military put a foot down and he was trialed for nepotism and corruption amongst others.
Now I know, you are going to argue these were wrong allegations and he is pretty much a "saint" trying to bring freedom to the population against an oppressive regime. The reason you are saying so is because this is the picture Thaksin's followers were very busy painting for the international media throughout the military coups. It is essentially a calculated way of presenting the Western media with an image everyone here can easily understand - the oppressed farmers fighting against their oppressors. Yet, in the case of Thailand this just is not true. Thailand clearly has a lot of issues but it is wrong to blame the king and the monarchy for that and the people in Thailand are not oppressed, they are somewhere stuck between the old ways of the monarchy and moving toward bona-fide western democracy, they just are not there yet. Like I said, democracy is not yet 100% there in Thailand and it is going to take them a while longer... much like what you saw as outcomes of the "Arab spring". You don't drop the democracy bomb and everything is going to be great and wholesome in a week.
And before you argue in favor of the rebels and Thaksin voters, consider the fact that a huge portion of the votes were just bought from poor farmers. That's what I mean, that's how Thaksin is challenging the monarchy. He presents a new feeding hand and asks absolute loyalty in return. For nothing but his own gain in power and to grow his businesses and influence. Imagine Larry Ellison buying the presidency. This is not democracy either, yet with a huge part of the population being poor you will find it hard to establish a real democracy because starving people want food and they don't care who gives them bread.
So don't be too quick to side against the king and the monarchy and for Thaksin and his henchmen just because the romantic Western idea of oppressed people fighting against an abusive state feels good in your rebellious first world tummies.
As ridiculous as what they are doing may seem to you, essentially they are pushing back against what Thaksin and his henchmen have been doing ever since the riots. Thaksin has grown huge in media, he knows how to influence the international opinion and how to twist things the right way. You are getting front row seats to an internal political power struggle, that's all this is. There is no "good" and "evil" side, if anything it is the conservative and well educated against the poor under the leadership of greed
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain
They are terribly efficient. What how they make this comment dissappear instantly.
Poof!
Except one power he does have (that completely negates your point here) is the royal pardon.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/9391118/Thai-king-pardons-US-car-salesman-over-royal-insult.html
But apparently he only does that for American citizens when highly pressured by the US state department, and not for his own citizens...
The Thai king has repeatedly voiced his displeasure at the cases of people being prosecuted for speaking their mind. His only failing is that he hasn't been more forceful with those elements of the government who keep on persecuting those who do.
No, he's repeatedly voiced his displeasure in English-language interviews with foreign journalists. In Thai speeches? Not so much.
But what's worse is that some anti-semites might compare this to what Israeli is doing. Clearly such a comparison would be unwarranted.
Given the volume, I do not know whether I shall call this propaganda or spam. If it is propaganda, I suspect it is so blunt that it is rather ineffective.
He actually tends to use that on most people convicted of disrespecting him. And has spent a ton of his personal money on improving the agricultural infrastructure of Thailand. He's actually a pretty decent dude. Popular opinion might turn on his son though, he is a lot more of a douchebad
MUCH better than what the US used its military for most of the time since WWII.
Yeah he is a total saint. If he had any reasonable morals he would do something. Which he doesn't.
Thailand is imperfect; the United States is imperfect. As my father said many years ago, you pays your money and takes your choice. I decided twenty years ago that I would rather die in Thailand than live in America. I'm still here.
Any of you are welcome to come and take a look.
All Glory to the Hypnotoad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHU2RlSCdxU
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70% of Obama's twitter followers are fake and paid for.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/fashion/twitter-followers-for-sale.html?_r=0
Parent Score +1 ON topic. "And ida been able to get away with my Obama astroturfing... if it weren't for those meddling kids." Must! suppress! dissent! for! Obama!
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