Thailand Bans Teen Info On the Net 137
Reservoir Hill writes "Internet providers in Thailand have been prohibited from disclosing personal data about anyone under the age of 18 in a way that would allow others to gain access to them — including disclosure of their age, gender, phone number, email address, chat logon name, photo, or name of their school. Violators will face six months in jail of and a fine of $1,900. Web sites have been given one month to come into compliance." The article isn't clear on whether or not the prohibition applies to foreign sites that carry information about Thai kids.
WTH, KDawson? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Why the hell is this "censorship"? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, it is a form of free speech. However, freedom is not absolute. We commonly recognize that you cannot yell fire in a theater, use certain "fighting words", or perjure yourself, all acts of free speech that we consider unreasonable. Many people (although not many people on slashdot) believe that freedom of speech can be limited by intellectual property laws. So, the interesting question is not whether it is an act of free speech, but whether whether it is justified or not to restrict it. And censorship is the word used to describe an unjustified restriction on free speech. I think in this case there are sufficent societal benefits for the restriction, but reasonable people can disagree.
Re:WTH, KDawson? (Score:2, Interesting)
So the interesting questions I can think of are: is this retroactive to information already published, such that a site might have to verify the ages of existing users? Is the site responsible moderating content and users before potentially publishing personal info, or only remove things that they later find are personal info posted by minors? And will these sites be able to comply within a month?
Re:I got an idea (Score:3, Interesting)
which I think is just as funny, but consider for a sec. Society benefits when the kids are encouraged to participate in official-type stuff like this. Something about feeling included. More governments should try it. I can't remember where I read - and a couple of searches aren't bringing it up - but one section of (from memory) a state government in Australia has recruited the teen "hacker" who took a few minutes to bypass the bajillion dollar government-issue "net nanny" filter. This teenager is helping to draft government tech policy. Cool AND daggy!
Re:actually there is a line (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.slate.com/id/2174841 [slate.com]
He proposes three boundary ages, and has studies to justify each one.
12 - when you can physically have sex - when women reach puberty
16 - when you're intellectually mature - people under 16 score quite badly on intelligence tests
25 - when you have some kind of emotional maturity - people under that age don't have proper self regulatory systems
Which is a bit like a boot sequence when you think of it - I particularly like the way there's ten years between 16 and 25 where you're smart but clueless.
As he puts it -
What I wouldn't do is slap a mandatory sentence on a 17-year-old, even if his nominal girlfriend were 12.
Internet censorship (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So what's the problem? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Marketing Stratagy? / Thai women (Score:2, Interesting)
Having recently been to Phuket I can say that the place family friendly, well most of it. The sex industry is based around the town of Patong (most of the family resorts are in Kata and Karon) more specifically Bangla Road. There are also several pre-existing laws to discourage paedophiles, for example the minimum legal age to work in bars is 20 (the legal drinking age is also 20 so under-age girls cant get into nightclubs to solicit). I wouldn't be surprised if their tourist industry had a hand in this, Thai's are not over-reactionary "think of the children" type people, they are a kind, easy going people who are very difficult to offend due to a majority Buddhist population, heck even the Thai Muslims are difficult to offend (losing your temper is considered a sign of a poor upbringing in Thailand so it is very rarely that a Thai will lose their temper) so US style "think of the children" scare politics very rarely work.
The regular tourist industry is Thailand's main import, although there is still a large sex industry which does attract a lot of single western (as well as Asian) men (when I was there the majority of western men were under 40). If you walk around during the day, even down bangla road you wont find many sex workers, just restaurants, shops and stalls only a few bars are open and these only cater to those who are looking for a drink.
From personal experience I can tell you that it is fairly difficult for a westerner (farang) to judge a Thai girls age and this tends to go in both directions, some Thai's who look 20 may only be 16 but a lot of Thai's who look about 20-22 will be 26-28.
maturity is not a number (long post inside) (Score:3, Interesting)
== first, sexual maturity ==
i know girls who were sexual before being 12 (even before having their period). not all of them fully knew what they were doing - to hear "you can always put it out" from a slightly stupid girl is probably a huge turn-off for a young boy with some knowledge in biology - but they were able to articulate their sexual needs and act upon them, so they clearly were sexual mature.
a solution would be more sex ed. really, on what grounds should one forbid two persons who know what they are doing some act, if it is consentual? non-consentual sex is already prohibited (rape, anyone ?). also, teen pregnancy is no argument with proper sex-ed (sorry, radical christfags).
== second, intellectual maturity ==
i went to a boarding school for "gifted" pupils, so i know quite a number of people who are seen (and see themselves) as "brighter" than the average person. we had to take a test at eigth grade to get there. after some time i came to the conclusion that you usually cannot compare "real-world" intellect at all. nearly all of them were somehow good at tests, yet many lacked "real world" skills and could not solve unusual problems (the real world is not your textbook example) due to lack of imagination.
on the other side, i know people who can keep up with daily tasks, are definitely not mentally retarded, but just stupid and / or disinterested. my little brother, for example, killed the microwave due to profound lack of skill and didn't even notice it due to watching TV. when my little sister (5 years old at that incident) woke everyone up (smoke + sleeping people => bad) we headed for the garden. my sister wanted to know why that happened, my brother didn't want to know.
wait, my brother is 16 years old. my sister was 5 and could recall the outlines of "how a microwave works" half a year later (in before shitty explaination). to top that, there is this "gifted" girl i know, nearly the same age as my brother, but indefinitely more intelligent and also, wise - she probably was smarter than him when she was 15. should he have more rights based on age? hint: my brother did apparently not become more intelligent or knowledgeable in the last two years and probably never will.
a solution to this problem could be mandatory tests for everyone to get certain "dangerous" rights. nearly every country has this for driving a car - you must proove you understood the rules, regardless of age. so
here in Germany, we have the "Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung" (translate as something like "federal central for political education"), which has the job to teach citizens on how the state works (it certainly isn't government propaganda) - you can order the German Constitution and many informational texts on local and global political issues at low cost (like shipping only), for example. in my opinion, every citizen should know how stuff works(TM); is imperative for a society with the goal of its citizens being free individuals.
== third, emotional maturity ==
this is by far the easiest to answer. i know people who were emotionally stable in a very young age. also i know people who are absolutely not stable. when i talked to emotionally unstable persons, many of them (6 or so), cried at
not every kid created equal (Score:3, Interesting)
From when I was only 14 years old I was maintaining my own websites, including e-commerce sites, I was developing my own shareware games and I was promoting them, I was also maintaining forums and mailing lists, and I was also publishing/selling articles and short scifi stories to magazines (and I was also trying to publish my scifi in book form by approaching publishers, but I failed in this, because publishers did not believe in teenage authors). Giving out some contact info, carefully, was required.