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Censorship The Internet Your Rights Online

Thailand Censors 'Inappropriate' Websites 42

Posted by timothy from the know-it-when-they-see-it dept.
In addition to putting a curfew on an online game (Ragnarok) and Internet cafes, Thailand also starts to censor 'inappropriate' sites. More details can be found here and here. Since the rise of the current administration two years ago, freedom of the press in Thailand has been more and more restricted. Big media, newspapers, telecom companies are now owned by the administration's cronies. It makes me wonder when the government will censor any opposition on the web using this 'inappropriate contents' pretext.
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Thailand Censors 'Inappropriate' Websites More

Thailand Censors 'Inappropriate' Websites

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  • Related /. story (Score:2, Informative)

    by $exyNerdie ( 683214 )

    Related /. story [slashdot.org]

  • Some people are going to applaude censorship (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Smartcowboy ( 679871 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @10:34AM (#6400590)
    No longer than yesterday I had a discussion with a girl who said she wants censorship in movies and television.

    Her main argument was about the "bad taste" of some movies and tv shows.

    Who is good enough to decide what's good taste and what's bad taste for everyone?
    Who is good enough to decide what's appropriate and what's inappropriate for everyone?

    A mindless computer program?

    Some censorship comity that don't knows me/you and thinks it can decide what I/you can look at?

    Censorship = Abuse

    • Re:Some people are going to applaude censorship (Score:4, Informative)

      by lightspawn ( 155347 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @10:46AM (#6400669) Homepage
      Who is good enough to decide what's good taste and what's bad taste for everyone?
      Who is good enough to decide what's appropriate and what's inappropriate for everyone?

      Fine companies with products such as these:

      * BESS [peacefire.org]
      * Cyber Patrol [peacefire.org]
      * WebSENSE [peacefire.org]
      * Net Nanny [peacefire.org]
      * SmartFilter [peacefire.org]
      * X-Stop [peacefire.org]
      * I-Gear [peacefire.org]
      * CYBERsitter [peacefire.org]

    • "I believe in freedom of speech as long as I am not offended by what you say" - direct quote of my old literature professor (Univ. AZ 1993).

      Censorship is a hard word to throw around. What is the difference between child porn and regular porn? Age is just a arbitrary number, 18 by no means implies rational intelligent thought (nor does 21 for that matter).

      NYC is now completely non-smoking in all public places. Why? Public health is bull sh*&. Go somewhere else if you think it is unhealthy. You sw
      • NYC is now completely non-smoking in all public places. Why? Public health is bull sh*&. Go somewhere else if you think it is unhealthy. You swim in a clean pool / river / lake instead of a polluted one for the same reason.

        Public health is bullsh*&? (btw, "bullsh*&"? please tell me that was an intended censorship joke) Best I can tell, most of the public is pretty concerned with their health. By your logic we shouldn't have laws banning spaying machine gun fire in public - Go somewhere el

        • Public health is bullsh*&? (btw, "bullsh*&"? please tell me that was an intended censorship joke) Best I can tell, most of the public is pretty concerned with their health. By your logic we shouldn't have laws banning spaying machine gun fire in public - Go somewhere else if you think the bullets are dangerous.

          Machine guns are illegal too...

          Most of the general public is NOT concerned about their health (looka the obesity numbers, or smoking numbers, of US citizens).

          My ire is due to the fact that
          • okay, machine guns are illegal. replace machine guns with semi automatic weapons, or even handguns, or rifles... my point remains the same. smoke does real damage to people, and the cost of health care is distributed to everyone. (higher insurance premiums, workers comp clains, medicare, etc)

            why aren't cigs illegal? well, if you think drug policy is good thing, they *should* be illegal, but fat chance the southern tobacco growing states and the tobacco lobby are going to let that happen. if you think drug

            • I think we are both in agreeance (from opposite sides of the fence) that the American legal system, and its laws, are in shambles. Not much of it makes sense, and most of it contradicts something else.

              Not much can change though until the Supreme Court is no longer a lifetime appointment.
              • um, so what sides of the fence are we on?

                as far as the court, how long of an appointment should it be? I mean, if the executive branch can fill in the court when elected that pretty much destroys the whole idea of checks and balances.
                • I am on the "big government sucks" side...

                  Every other judge in the country (AFAIK) has a term. Some are elected by the public, other by their peers. There is nothing in place to hold the Supreme Court Justices in check. They can do whatever, whenever, for as long as they shall live. They have more power than anyone else in the country; due to the fact that they can outlast any of their detractors. All they end up doing is voting party lines 90% of the time anyhow. Since when does politics govern law
                  • I agree totally that the judges, in many regards, put politics ahead of the law. Term limits would be a good idea, but how? a set number of years? one goes every presidental term? I think the idea the founding fathers had (not that i'd presume to speak for them) was to have a branch of government that would be more conservative (in the tradional sense... administrations and congresses come and go relatively rapidly, but the court is more steady). As a result, a short term swing in either ideological directi
                    • I think the terms should be limited to something like 7 years. This way you can not have anyone there for 2 full presidential terms.

                      There are currently 9 members [akamaitech.net] (1 Chief and 8 Associate Justices).

                      I guess it is more practical to have terms of 9 years (1 new SCJ per year). Make the Chief Justice position open only to current SCJ's with 5 years of bench time or more, no more than 7 years.
                    • I think the terms should be limited to something like 7 years. This way you can not have anyone there for 2 full presidential terms.

                      But that's defeating the purpose of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is supposed to be there for a long time, relatively speaking. Their opinions on how the law should be interpretted aren't supposed to be dictated by popular opinion. Most of the time, popular opinion would remember something that happened 8 or 9 years ago (remember Gulf War I? see, I'm right). If a SCJ
                    • I understand what you are getting at.

                      My basic fear is; this country is going straight into the shitter. People are willing to give up their basic civil liberties with just the mention of the word "terrorist" or "terrorism" or whatnot. They think that it only affects those that are being villainized by the government. They fail to see that everyone is being clustered into one group; possible suspect. Some non scientific (read online) polls I have seen show 70% or more approval of diminished civil libert
                    • My basic fear is; this country is going straight into the shitter. ... MLK Jr must be rolling over in his grave.

                      I absolutely couldn't agree with you more. I think the biggest "concern" that the "minorities" have is what they like to call "diversity", which is gradually turning into the source for a good number of problems, including the dumbing down of our nation's children, discrimination against "non-minorities", etc. At some point, the general public will realize this is what's happening... which is w
                    • While I agree, I must ask you this: Are we judging our country by the standards set by other countries? I think it should be the other way around. Other countries should judge their greatness by our standard. However, I do agree that 2 political parties simply isn't enough.

                      What is so great right our country right now that we should be the bellweather of what is considered great? Nothing that I can see. America was not better in the past because it was America, it was better because of its ideals, and it
                    • What is so great right our country right now that we should be the bellweather of what is considered great?

                      Our country is great simply because we're better than any other country. The example you gave, France, is definitely not a great example of how a country can operate. They have much higher unemployment, a higher national debt, lower average wages, lower average intelligence, and no power or authority to change anything in the course of history. The same things apply to most of the other countries in
              • I think we are both in agreeance...

                I'm sorry... this is just a pet peeve of mine. "Agreeance", while being an obsolete word, isn't a word in common usage, and thus shouldn't be used. We have invented a "replaceanced" word called "Agreement". Please, please use it... It's a good word.

                As far as the content of your post, I agree... the American Legal System is a wreck and needs to be seriously rethought from the beginning. Then again, so does the American government.

                Not much can change though until the
            • my point remains the same. smoke does real damage to people,

              For second-hand smoke, it appears the jury is still out. A recent study in the British Journal of Medicine on American Cancer Society data shows almost no increase in smoking-related problems for non-smoking spouses living with smokers for the last 30+ years.

              The study was done by two British scientists funded by tobacco industry interests; however, this isn't your standard biased American Tobacco Institute study. It actually got published in a p
              • There's no jury out, there is a small correlation between second hand smoke (or passive smoking) and an increase in some problems. However the data sets used in these studies are so small they aren't statistically relevant. IE: There is NO accepted proof that second hand smoke does anything (not even asthma attacks). Zip zero, nada. Won't find anything in a respected medical journal because the RR isn't high enough. Passive smoking bans are not to protect non-smokers but encourage smokers to quit and st
          • Machine guns are illegal too...

            No, they aren't. You just have to pay a $200 registration fee/tax stamp. See the 1934 National Firearms Act [google.com].
        • Make the drinking age 21 or High School graduation. Helps the problem of younger kids drinking, and gives the dropouts a reason to reconsider.

          What would the liquor store signs read?

          Please have your ID or Highschool Equivalency Certificate ready before purchasing!
          • What would the liquor store signs read?

            Please have your ID or Highschool Equivalency Certificate ready before purchasing!


            My plan entails the kids going to the dmv and getting an endorsement on their DL saying they are legal for alcohol consumption

        • ne answer would be to raise the age for voting, military, legal contracts, etc to 21.

          We just lowered it to 18 [findlaw.com] a while ago.

          Make the drinking age 21 or High School graduation.

          How about using Germany as a model: 18 for everything, although kids of 16 can still buy beer and wine IIRC. This way they know how to drink and handle their alcohol, and it isn't special anymore by the time they get their driver's license at 18.
        • Make the drinking age 21 or High School graduation.

          I have a better idea. How about making the drinking age 12? That way they can go out and get drunk when they're very young and get it "out of their system" (that's a figure of speech). Then when they learn to drive, "Big Brother" will know which ones to watch, since they'll already be known alcoholics. Crazy idea, I know, but just crazy enough to work.

  • Don't worry: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Elwood P Dowd ( 16933 ) <judgmentalist@gmail.com> on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @12:08PM (#6401211) Journal
    You can still have sex with twelve year old boys in Thailand. You just can't read about it on the internet.
    • Just because you have sex with 12 year old boys doesn't mean it's legal.
      • I think he was pointing out the irony of how preteen sex is legal in Thailand, you just can't read about it. I could be wrong, but from the movies I've seen ("Me love you long time for 5 dollars!"), it's probably true.
  • Last I heard they still haven't banned 'blowjob bars'. Hmmm, maybe they'll only crack down once they make 'blowjob cybercafes'. God forbid somebody visit an inappropriate website whilst irrumating a 16 year old girl.

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