Youtube

[sriracha john]

Thailand is truly unbelievable sometimes they just can't fathom that the rest of the world doesn't follow their illogical rules.

What's "illogical" about it??

[wintermute]

Thailand is truly unbelievable sometimes they just can't fathom that the rest of the world doesn't follow their illogical rules.

What's "illogical" about it??

Read some history. There's plenty of things wrong with political censorship. This is what it falls under. Yes the video is silly, juvenile, and insipid but the reaction is equally outrageous from a civil rights point of view.

[sriracha john]

Thailand is truly unbelievable sometimes they just can't fathom that the rest of the world doesn't follow their illogical rules.

What's "illogical" about it??

Read some history. There's plenty of things wrong with political censorship. This is what it falls under. Yes the video is silly, juvenile, and insipid but the reaction is equally outrageous from a civil rights point of view.

"Political" ??? It's not about a politician or political.

Calling the reaction outrageous really reflects a lack of knowledge about how Thais feel.

[cdnvic]

Well, if YouTube doesn't pull these videos they will have to be happy with giving the ability to take the whole site offline in a country by uploading just one video. That's a hacker's dream.

I'm not denying YouTube's right to host whatever videos they want. I'm not saying they must take it down. I'm saying they should excercise their editorial right to remove anything deemed inappropriate, and that includes this video.

The question of censorship is out the door as YouTube has been censoring/editing since the it's inception.

[britmaveric]

No one can see Walking with Ladyboys by Scampy?

[serpentine]

I'm not getting the thai gov warning, the page just won't load. Is this a technical glitch or a block. Has the current gov ever blocked YouTube? I am in the south. Is this relevent?

[MaiPenLai]

I'm not getting the thai gov warning, the page just won't load. Is this a technical glitch or a block. Has the current gov ever blocked YouTube? I am in the south. Is this relevent?

Block

Yes

Maybe

[TAWP]

What is that standard that YouTube uses? Is it related to their "offensive" button? Most likely, things are looked at on a case-by-case basis. I would imagine that there has been content that has been deleted as it was deemed offensive to different groups over time, be they Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, or Christians. For example, I wouldn't expect to find White Supremacists hate speech video clips on YouTube.

Honestly, I can see why the youtube administration didn't care one bit. Only people in this country can manage to get so riled up over something so trivial to anyone who isn't Thai. Last time I saw Youtube is owned by Google and it's an American company. In America there is this thing called Freedom of Speech and damned if some tin-pot military dictators in a foreign country will try and tell them what they can or can't do. They gave similar responses to the islamofascists that were crying about the Mohammad drawings too. I expect they will hold their ground on this as well and bravo to them.

It's unfortunate that people like you believe that censorship is the solution in one to everyone's problems. History as shown that those that are willing to burn books and suppress speech will be willing to burn humans next.

Has YouTube EVER deleted a video? If so, why?

and once again, this has nothing to do with the present government.... it has to do with His Majesty the King... and anyone who doesn't understand that offensive portrayals of His Majesty are going to upset millions of Thais doesn't understand Thailand.

and yet again, I don't believe censorship is "the solution in one to everyone's problems" as you overstate. Free speech comes with responsibility firmly stapled forever to it. It's why there are limits placed on it in every country of the world.

It's also why YouTube DOES censor.

There is one primary reason YouTube, above all, deletes videos: Copyright-reasons. Everything else is secondary, since it's a matter of taste. Apart from hardcore-pron and other common rules, since, believe it or not, that would bring YouTube liable to keep records of everyone in the movie being above 18 and a whole lot of other headaches. (Congress found a way to try to supress porn-sites online.)

But that is besides the point: PORLY THOUGHT OUT HUMOR ISN'T ILLEGAL.

I'm saddened to see that someone I normally would think posts the reason of common sence seems to embrace censorship so much.

[TAWP]

Thailand is truly unbelievable sometimes they just can't fathom that the rest of the world doesn't follow their illogical rules.

What's "illogical" about it??

Read some history. There's plenty of things wrong with political censorship. This is what it falls under. Yes the video is silly, juvenile, and insipid but the reaction is equally outrageous from a civil rights point of view.

"Political" ??? It's not about a politician or political.

Calling the reaction outrageous really reflects a lack of knowledge about how Thais feel.

If a thai person don't agree with that viewpoint, does that make them less thai?

[joecr]

Well, if YouTube doesn't pull these videos they will have to be happy with giving the ability to take the whole site offline in a country by uploading just one video. That's a hacker's dream.

I'm not denying YouTube's right to host whatever videos they want. I'm not saying they must take it down. I'm saying they should excercise their editorial right to remove anything deemed inappropriate, and that includes this video.

The question of censorship is out the door as YouTube has been censoring/editing since the it's inception.

You give them too much credit. They are now complicit in a crime.

My solution to this problem is simple. Simply charge Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) with Lese Majeste. Try him in Thailand. Google was politely told that the video was offensive and possibly illegal in Thailand and asked to remove it. They refused. Therefore, they are now accomplises

Once Eric has been tried and convicted (in abstentia if necessary) extradite him from the US. Let's see how long the video stays up when that sleazebag is looking at 20 years in a Thai prison.

I mean, seriously, Google would be slobbering all over themselves to comply with a request from China. Why is Thailand treated like a second class citizen? Google has just ruined any credit they had with the Thai people over this.

I say its time to demand justice.

[TAWP]

Well, if YouTube doesn't pull these videos they will have to be happy with giving the ability to take the whole site offline in a country by uploading just one video. That's a hacker's dream.

I'm not denying YouTube's right to host whatever videos they want. I'm not saying they must take it down. I'm saying they should excercise their editorial right to remove anything deemed inappropriate, and that includes this video.

The question of censorship is out the door as YouTube has been censoring/editing since the it's inception.

You give them too much credit. They are now complicit in a crime.

My solution to this problem is simple. Simply charge Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) with Lese Majeste. Try him in Thailand. Google was politely told that the video was offensive and possibly illegal in Thailand and asked to remove it. They refused. Therefore, they are now accomplises

Once Eric has been tried and convicted (in abstentia if necessary) extradite him from the US. Let's see how long the video stays up when that sleazebag is looking at 20 years in a Thai prison.

I mean, seriously, Google would be slobbering all over themselves to comply with a request from China. Why is Thailand treated like a second class citizen? Google has just ruined any credit they had with the Thai people over this.

I say its time to demand justice.

Bending over to fascism is your solution? Since you do realise that that are most likely hundreds if not thousends of movies that are offensive for a strict muslem person? And you can bet that if we are going to start the 'remove'-game, Saudi Arabia and others are going to have some things to say.

Charging the CEO would only bring light on the subject of outdates laws and reduce tourists here. Is that something worth struggling to do?

[wintermute]

You give them too much credit. They are now complicit in a crime.

My solution to this problem is simple. Simply charge Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) with Lese Majeste. Try him in Thailand. Google was politely told that the video was offensive and possibly illegal in Thailand and asked to remove it. They refused. Therefore, they are now accomplises

Once Eric has been tried and convicted (in abstentia if necessary) extradite him from the US. Let's see how long the video stays up when that sleazebag is looking at 20 years in a Thai prison.

You can't extradite citizens from another nation that didn't break any laws that are considered legal in their own country and on their own soil. Good luck with that. The U.S. courts would laugh at that and throw it right out the window. It's so preposterously stupid to even suggest that. You're basically trying to enforce censorship on another country's citizens. That would be almost an act of war.

[cdnvic]

Well, if YouTube doesn't pull these videos they will have to be happy with giving the ability to take the whole site offline in a country by uploading just one video. That's a hacker's dream.

I'm not denying YouTube's right to host whatever videos they want. I'm not saying they must take it down. I'm saying they should excercise their editorial right to remove anything deemed inappropriate, and that includes this video.

The question of censorship is out the door as YouTube has been censoring/editing since the it's inception.

You give them too much credit. They are now complicit in a crime.

My solution to this problem is simple. Simply charge Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) with Lese Majeste. Try him in Thailand. Google was politely told that the video was offensive and possibly illegal in Thailand and asked to remove it. They refused. Therefore, they are now accomplises

Once Eric has been tried and convicted (in abstentia if necessary) extradite him from the US. Let's see how long the video stays up when that sleazebag is looking at 20 years in a Thai prison.

I mean, seriously, Google would be slobbering all over themselves to comply with a request from China. Why is Thailand treated like a second class citizen? Google has just ruined any credit they had with the Thai people over this.

I say its time to demand justice.

That is very unrealistic. and would just make things worse. Eric Schmidt is an American carrying out business in the USA according to American laws. It is up to Thailand if they wish to connect to his service. By the same logic you applied you could send speeding tickets to people in countries with a higher speed limit than yours.

I feel very strongly that this video should be removed, but there is no legal reason why an American company cannot host what it wants on its own servers operating lawfully within the US.

If the Thai authorities want to hit back at Google then they could remove their google.co.th domain, block googlesyndication which serves all their ads, etc. These are things which are under the jurisdiction of Thai law. How Eric Schmidt lawfully conducts business in another country is not.

[permanent_disorder]

Read some history. There's plenty of things wrong with political censorship. This is what it falls under. Yes the video is silly, juvenile, and insipid but the reaction is equally outrageous from a civil rights point of view.

"Political" ??? It's not about a politician or political.

Calling the reaction outrageous really reflects a lack of knowledge about how Thais feel.

what is if that video is just a scapegoat or red herring? may there is a banning of youtube for some other reason, but for public explain need some reason majority of thailand will agree with. a test, a checkout how far we can go with censorship. some small version of the Reichstags fire

how would you think about if thaivisa.com getting flooded by some trolls, (agent provocateurs or not) and then the whole website got banned.

let's some write something stupid on wikipedia, build up a strange profile on myspace - will the things get banned?

i don't know but that is for sure: now with the media attention every padabibi, bubbahubba, dabbidubi troll knows how he gets in the international newspaper worldwide. let's wait for the free-loader and copycats.

don't feed the trolls, every internet user knows, banning youtube was the opposite.

[wintermute]

don't feed the trolls, every internet user knows, banning youtube was the opposite.

Yep, the possibilities are endless now that every tom, dick, and harry across the globe knows how to piss off an entire nation. Think about all the malicious things someone can go with this. It's just too easy to manipulate thai emotions.

[cclub75]

Yep, the possibilities are endless now that every tom, dick, and harry across the globe knows how to piss off an entire nation. Think about all the malicious things someone can go with this. It's just too easy to manipulate thai emotions.

Indeed, if thai authorities or YouTube don't back off... Then, we could have a pretty dead end situation...

Because now, thanks to the magnificient PR work of Thailand, any lunatic (or activist) knows how to create a diplomatic incident... In a very efficient manner.

So YouTube definitly banned in Thailand ?

Then, after it will be Dailymotion.com. And after BitTorrent.

And many other.

And after, it will become like a real game : we can expect MP3 songs offensive to the monarchy, messages on Usenet, etc.

It's virtually endless.

At that game, Thailand will loose. That's for sure.

[sniffdog]

I noticed another Lese Majeste incident. This time it was a comment. They did ban the member, but the comment is still there.

I can understand the point of banning YouTube completely if they refuse to remove videos/comments.

Edited April 4, 2007 by Totster

[Ijustwannateach]

Just posting here to make a request: please keep specific details of the problems with the Youtube videos outside of the discussion- you can mention lese majeste, but no discussion of the details publicly. Such discussion may itself be against the law.

"S"

[lingyai]

I noticed another Lese Majeste incident. This time it was a comment. They did ban the member, but the comment is still there.

I can understand the point of banning YouTube completely if they refuse to remove videos/comments.

As I am sure has been said before blocking youtube over this was not a smart move. Nothing to do with cencorship anything like, it isn't smart because it gives this video publicty. Want to make something famous? Ban it.

Hardly anyone would have seen this video if not for the blocking of youtube. Now this is news all around the internet a ton of people will see it.

Not only that the internet is full of people just trying to get a rise out of others (like the trolls on here). I expect more insulting videos just because of the reaction to this one.

The gov't needs to hire some competent pr people.

[Hobox]

In the beginning of this day I searched on google for the user name of the culprit and got 3 hits. Did it now again, almost 20 hrs later and we are up to 90 hits!

In another 24 hrs I suspect I'll going to get 200-500 hits.

[cdnvic]

The comments are often blatantly racist. I just got called a gook.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

There is a video posted there which is extremely insulting to HM the King and the Thai people

in general.

That is why the site is blocked.

How did you get that information? I called a couple of times and they still tell me they don't know. I don't want to press the poor customer service staff further if this is the case.

It is the case.

[WAERTH]

This whole thing is a proving a point that I often make in discussions that not everybody can handle freedom of speech unfortunately.

One dimwit can stop 60 million + people from reaching an internet site. Just think about that! One person can stop the fun of 60 million others. This is what the internet basically has come to.

Even though I am in BKK I got around the block and I am absolutely shocked by the racist and violent comments made by both Thais against Westerners and Westerners against Thais. Especially the sexual remarks against the Thais, made by Westerners, are very much below the belt.

Before someone flames me: I am also against the blocking of the site by the Thai government. There would have been many other avenues to solve this.

Waerth

Edited April 4, 2007 by WAERTH

[JimsKnight]

Yep, the possibilities are endless now that every tom, dick, and harry across the globe knows how to piss off an entire nation. Think about all the malicious things someone can go with this. It's just too easy to manipulate thai emotions.

Indeed, if thai authorities or YouTube don't back off... Then, we could have a pretty dead end situation...

Because now, thanks to the magnificient PR work of Thailand, any lunatic (or activist) knows how to create a diplomatic incident... In a very efficient manner.

So YouTube definitly banned in Thailand ?

Then, after it will be Dailymotion.com. And after BitTorrent.

And many other.

And after, it will become like a real game : we can expect MP3 songs offensive to the monarchy, messages on Usenet, etc.

It's virtually endless.

At that game, Thailand will loose. That's for sure.

I think Bit Torrent is banned on some Thai ISPs (at least it was when I was in Changers.)

It will be interesting to see how this will pan out, who will back down? Thai Government or the Almighty Gurgle! US capitalism 'gainst the Thai ways!

I hope the vid gets removed from youtube if a lot of people find it offensive and its upsetting then why not?

[rtaxron]

What a lot of fuss about a website being barred, have you not got more interesting things in your life to look at?

[sriracha john]

What is that standard that YouTube uses? Is it related to their "offensive" button? Most likely, things are looked at on a case-by-case basis. I would imagine that there has been content that has been deleted as it was deemed offensive to different groups over time, be they Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, or Christians. For example, I wouldn't expect to find White Supremacists hate speech video clips on YouTube.

Honestly, I can see why the youtube administration didn't care one bit. Only people in this country can manage to get so riled up over something so trivial to anyone who isn't Thai. Last time I saw Youtube is owned by Google and it's an American company. In America there is this thing called Freedom of Speech and damned if some tin-pot military dictators in a foreign country will try and tell them what they can or can't do. They gave similar responses to the islamofascists that were crying about the Mohammad drawings too. I expect they will hold their ground on this as well and bravo to them.

It's unfortunate that people like you believe that censorship is the solution in one to everyone's problems. History as shown that those that are willing to burn books and suppress speech will be willing to burn humans next.

Has YouTube EVER deleted a video? If so, why?

and once again, this has nothing to do with the present government.... it has to do with His Majesty the King... and anyone who doesn't understand that offensive portrayals of His Majesty are going to upset millions of Thais doesn't understand Thailand.

and yet again, I don't believe censorship is "the solution in one to everyone's problems" as you overstate. Free speech comes with responsibility firmly stapled forever to it. It's why there are limits placed on it in every country of the world.

It's also why YouTube DOES censor.

There is one primary reason YouTube, above all, deletes videos: Copyright-reasons. Everything else is secondary, since it's a matter of taste. Apart from hardcore-pron and other common rules, since, believe it or not, that would bring YouTube liable to keep records of everyone in the movie being above 18 and a whole lot of other headaches. (Congress found a way to try to supress porn-sites online.)

But that is besides the point: PORLY THOUGHT OUT HUMOR ISN'T ILLEGAL.

I'm saddened to see that someone I normally would think posts the reason of common sence seems to embrace censorship so much.

Never mind hard-care porn, they don't allow even modest nudity.

What are the other "common rules" they employ? Is there hate speech on YouTube, for example?

I'm sorry if it saddens you and I don't embrace censorship... I've always been against it, but I also realize that there are sensible limits put on free speech and I don't see this as more limiting than a prohibition on me from spewing Nazi-ish hate speech in front of an American synagogue.

As cdnvic points out, censorship has been done by YouTube itself since it began.

[Tilokarat]

I wonder what the reaction of the people of Thailand would be if the government did not impose a ban? Politically, the government made a prudent and pragmatic decision. Whilst it may not be in tune with the rights of a free-born Englishman to express himself, the government is probably marching in step with the feelings of the nation.

[sriracha john]

Thailand is truly unbelievable sometimes they just can't fathom that the rest of the world doesn't follow their illogical rules.

What's "illogical" about it??

Read some history. There's plenty of things wrong with political censorship. This is what it falls under. Yes the video is silly, juvenile, and insipid but the reaction is equally outrageous from a civil rights point of view.

"Political" ??? It's not about a politician or political.

Calling the reaction outrageous really reflects a lack of knowledge about how Thais feel.

If a thai person don't agree with that viewpoint, does that make them less thai?

No. But show the video to any random 100 Thai people and ask if they think it's just "poorly thought out humor" to use your terms or "juvenile, silly, or insipid" to use wintermute's description and the percentage I think who feel in much more stronger terms than those will be, unshockingly, to me anyway, very high.

Take a screen capture of the clip and incorporate it into a T-shirt and wear it anywhere in Thailand and see the reaction you get.

[MarcoH]

YouTube disappears from Thai Internet

By BangkokPost.com

Internet users reported on Wednesday that Thai authorities had blocked the popular website YouTube, over an insulting video of His Majesty the King.

Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, the minister of information and communication technology, told the Reuters news agency he personally ordered a block of the entire site from Thailand after the ministry's attempts to block the offending page last week failed.

"Since Google (which owns YouTube) has rejected our repeated requests to withdraw the clip, we can't help blocking the entire site in Thailand," said Mr Sitthichai. "When they decide to withdraw the clip, we will withdraw the ban," he said.

The site was unavailable to all customer of Thai Internet providers by Wednesday evening. The ban took several hours to take hold, with many users able to access the site at midday, while others said they could not reach it.

An Internet engineer in Bangkok, who asked to remain anonymous, said that the block appeared to be at the main Thailand gateway maintained by CAT Telecom, which claims to have a monopoly on all international Internet traffic.

"All traffic to the CAT Internet providers seems to be blocked at CAT's router," said the engineer. "It doesn't help that they only have two (customers) to begin with." Thailand has two major high-speed Internet providers.

Most users of one of the two major high-speed Internet services in Thailand were able to reach YouTube as usual as of noon on Wednesday, several hours after other users reported being blocked. By evening, all subscribers of Thai Internet providers were blocked from all of YouTube.

YouTube has many controversial videos concerning Thai politics, but a user uploaded a serious video-slide show satire against His Majesty last Sunday.

The clip, seen more than 16,000 times, was posted by someone using the screen name "paddidda." His post was criticised or rudely attacked by most of the 532 comments up to last night about the video.

Mr Sitthichai said YouTube had told Thai officials it did not find the clip offensive and declined their request to remove it.

The minister had promised early this week to block websites he or his staff considered to be pornographic, offensive to the monarchy or a danger to national security.

Blocking YouTube, which has hundreds of thousands of videos, will be highly controversial, even if offensive clips remain on the site. It already has been criticised as throwing the baby out with the dirty dishwater.

In a similar case last month, many Internet users in Thailand claimed they could not reach YouTube because of a block - but others had no problem reaching the site.

As Post Database writer Don Sambandaraksa wrote about the last YouTube partial outage in his column in today's newspaper:

NOTE: link is

http://www.bangkokpost.com/Database/04Apr2007_data71.php

"[W]hen something as blatant as censoring YouTube occurred, nobody seems to be responsible for it, or for finding out who did it. The Ministry of ICT (MICT) said it was not their fault while the TOT and CAT also denied responsibility."

http://www.bangkokpost.com/topstories/tops...s.php?id=117871

DID not see the clip but i think it's good call,, atleast they show to GOOGLE whos the Boss.

[Jai Dee]

I wonder what the reaction of the people of Thailand would be if the government did not impose a ban?

The Thais in my office are fully aware of the offending video and the government's resultant block of youtube. They are without exception fully supportive of the action.

"Nobody should do that to my King."