More Websites Offending Thai Monarchy Blocked 220
An anonymous reader writes "Thailand is ramping up their media wide censorship of anything that remotely offends Thai royalty. In the last three weeks, another 2,300 websites have been blocked. Another ~4,000 are soon expected.
And not just websites, but books as well as the Economist have been blocked. And anyone caught publishing such material, including foreigners, will get 3 to 15 years in a Thai prison. You don't want to be in a Thai prison!"
Thailand's censorship directly impacts our news (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple: Don't go to Thailand (Score:5, Insightful)
If a country wants to enact oppressive laws that censor citizens and foreigners alike that's their perogative. Just another reason to boycott travel to such a country. It's not the only country I'd choose to forgo unless I had to travel.
Meanwhile their Royal Family becomes less and less atuned to the sentiment of their populace. In other places and at other times similar action has usually led to poor leadership, the Royal Family becoming less relevant, and eventually the deposition of that family, often in a bloody revolution. It's the Royal Family that should be asking for this crackdown to end, if they know their history.
I've been very careful but does the above paragraph mean it's no longer safe for me to travel to Thailand?
Re:Thailand's censorship directly impacts our news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Get a grip, stormwatch - this is *not* being driven by the Thai monarchy, but by the political forces currently struggling for control of a fragile democracy.
Re:Thailand's censorship directly impacts our news (Score:5, Insightful)
CNN != the internet.
This is one of the main reasons I find `traditional' news media less and less relevant: a) they won't cover something discovered by another news agency unless that discovery creates additional news (eg an expose produces a resignation), which limits the propagation of often genuinely interesting news; and b) they self-censor in order to retain `access'. Neither of these are true about news via pure internet: a) internet news is all about repeating stuff someone else found first; and b) discussing the fact that the King of Thailand is raping ladyboys on a regular basis (or whatever) gives you your 15 minutes of fame on the intertubes, and since you never had `access' in the first place, this is gold gold gold.
Re (b), I expect that as politicians increasingly treat bloggers and other pure internet news sources as regular journalists, we'll being to see more self-censorship on the web. Alas.
Re:Thailand's censorship directly impacts our news (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Thailand counts as "exotic" for western media. This isn't a local interest story.
2. Thailand is neither friend nor foe in any emotionally significant way. This isn't an "our brave allies" or "our vile enemies" story.
3. The subject of the story is monarchy, which gives it a sort of storybook air. Compare to, say, Chinese sensorship, which feels more modern, and gets a lot more coverage.
Armchair pundits (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeesh. This isn't some minor county library board going thinkofthechildren!!1! yet again. The point isn't to actually control speech - this is a power play.
Re:Thailand's censorship directly impacts our news (Score:4, Insightful)
But with the internet we can route around CNN.
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is 100% correct, but the GP was just making a joke by using a /. meme. Given the wording he probably knows that as well as you do, if not more.
Re:This is not a problem with the Thai people (Score:5, Insightful)
Hate to say this, but noone here really cares if you insult America's Founding Fathers. It's not like we don't do it ourselves a fair amount.
Hell, we insult sitting Presidents, so why shouldn't we insult dead ones?
Re:Thailand's censorship directly impacts our news (Score:5, Insightful)
a) internet news is all about repeating stuff someone else found first;
This is exactly why the internet journalism is still a long way away from being able to fill the role of the traditional media. Real journalism has nothing to do with link farming or writing editorials about issues that have already been reported. Very little breaking of actual news- the work of establishing what the facts on the ground are when an event is underway, or following leads over a long period to discover a story- is done by internet media. What do you repeat when there's no one to repeat?
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thailand's censorship directly impacts our news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is not a problem with the Thai people (Score:3, Insightful)
Something tells me that if I marched into LAX with my Australian passport and shouted "George Washington was a Fag" someone would object. Not that I'd do that, I have common sense enough to be polite to the nation of which I am a guest. I have the good decency to only slag off other nations when I'm at home.
Re:Thailand's censorship directly impacts our news (Score:4, Insightful)
Does anybody still take CNN seriously as a news source?
Re:Thailand's censorship directly impacts our news (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:This is not a problem with the Thai people (Score:5, Insightful)
censorship is not the act we should chastise Thailand about
Why not? It's bad in China, it's bad in the US, it's bad in Europe, and it's bad in Thailand.
Re:Thailand's censorship directly impacts our news (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thailand's censorship directly impacts our news (Score:4, Insightful)
> In short, I don't know any way verify whether the people of Thailand are fond of their
> king...
and thus the purpose of the law is served.
Re:Why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, saying so is like saying that evil is evil anywhere on the globe regardless of any "moral relativist" crap.
Re:Thailand's censorship directly impacts our news (Score:2, Insightful)
Right, except for the southern half of the country.