Forum Website Owner Gets Suspended Jail Term

[george]

Website owner gets suspended jail term sex-scene pictures posted

BANGKOK: -- The owner of a message-board website got a suspended one-year jail term and a fine of Bt20,000 after a user posted sex-scene pictures of a Thai woman on his site.

The Criminal Court found Pongwit Singsun 23, guilty of violations of the Computer-Related Crimes Act for allowing his website to be used to damage another person's reputation.

Public prosecutors charged that the crime took place from October 6 to November 30.

A user posted the sex-scene pictures of a woman in Nakhon Sawan, who alerted police.

The court initially sentenced Pongwit to years and fine of Bt40,000 but commuted the penalties by half after he pleaded guilty.

The court later suspend the one-year jail term and put him on probation for two years during which he must report to probation officials for eight times. He is also required to carry out social service for 48 hours.

-- The Nation 2009-07-24

[Aasim]

ummm can you tell the website

[h90]

Good to see it is not you George....after all the inappropriate comments on the red/vs yellow news in the news section

[M8FYU]

Thats good news for him. Why ruin this young mans life by throwing him inside? I love Thailand and I am pleased that they have chosen to recognize this mans potential and given him a second chance. Lets just hope he has the manpower to police his forum more stringently.

[howerski]

ummm can you tell the website

Why would you want to look at a sex scene where the party concerned did not give their permission ? It's bang out of order I think they should stick it to all those who seek to lure innocent men to Thailand with pictures of scantily clad women and the promise of wild sex

[cyborg22]

Good to see it is not you George....after all the inappropriate comments on the red/vs yellow news in the news section

Thanks for your kind words haha

This is why it's important for george and his crew to police this site to the best of their ability.

But it's not only them that are responsible, It's up to us as well to report anything untoward. The admin and mods cannot be everywhere at any one time.

[gbswales]

Thats good news for him. Why ruin this young mans life by throwing him inside? I love Thailand and I am pleased that they have chosen to recognize this mans potential and given him a second chance. Lets just hope he has the manpower to police his forum more stringently.

This kind of thing will kill off forums and any oportunity for ordinary people to make their views public without them being censored first - of course offensive mateiral should be taken down by the site manager whenever it is reported however if site managers are expectedt to police every post before it is published then the days of free forums like this are numbered. This isnt a gripe at Thailand - half the countries of the world are trying to introduce things like this either at the insistance of people who are paranoid about anything sexual, because governments dont like public criticism or because some big corporate business like sony are trying to get their civil rights enforced by criminal law. All these are going to add to the cost to us of the internet.

[thaijasmine]

So this is opposite to the law in USA where the Website owner is not held

liable for what a third party posts ?

[slipperx]

Shows the risks of running any sort of web application where you do not control the content in these crazy times of censorship. Posting naked pictures of someone - even worse someone having sex - without their peremission and where they are identifiable though is not on, however I think the punishment should be against the poster not the forum owner. I don't see any mention of the police trying to identify the real culprit. If he had been a foreigner then he would no longer be able to stay in Thailand.

[MyphuketLife]

This is shamefull, the person serving time should be the person who posted not the forum people...

Lets see, if I buy paper and a pen, then use those to write a book that breaks Thai law, is it me or the pen and paper manufactures that go to jail????

Also why stop at the forum owner? What about the owner of the ISP that allowed him to upload the images, the computer manufactor that built the computer he used, the camera company of the camera he used, and so on?

[Garry]

Agree totally cyborg22. I may not be a regular poster but I do lurk the forums a lot

[h90]

So this is opposite to the law in USA where the Website owner is not held

liable for what a third party posts ?

I know in Germany the Website owner is hold liable, as well

[Ungabunga]

I can think of several Thai-orientated forum sites with pictures of that nature on them (of which I am not a member ofcourse ). If the website is ran from outside the Kingdom however, would this mean they're out of the Thai Law's reach?

[wolf5370]

Not knowing the site (though some seemed to have guessed it), could it be that the forum rules were lax?

Is it possible that this was the reason for prosecution, not that some naughty poster posted it, but because the forum owner allowed such contents in their rules.

If the perpatrator broke the forum rules, then they site should not be prosecuted (assuming that when it was noticed by the Mods - or reported by the other users it was then actioned and not endorsed by the site admin's inactivity).

If you own a guesthouse and someone steals from a bedroom (not a member of staff - but a guest lets say), then is the guesthouse owner also guilty for 'allowing' it to happen?

[MyphuketLife]

I can think of several Thai-orientated forum sites with pictures of that nature on them (of which I am not a member ofcourse ). If the website is ran from outside the Kingdom however, would this mean they're out of the Thai Law's reach?

Until the owner landed in Thailand....

[Arkady]

Thats good news for him. Why ruin this young mans life by throwing him inside? I love Thailand and I am pleased that they have chosen to recognize this mans potential and given him a second chance. Lets just hope he has the manpower to police his forum more stringently.

This kind of thing will kill off forums and any oportunity for ordinary people to make their views public without them being censored first - of course offensive mateiral should be taken down by the site manager whenever it is reported however if site managers are expectedt to police every post before it is published then the days of free forums like this are numbered. This isnt a gripe at Thailand - half the countries of the world are trying to introduce things like this either at the insistance of people who are paranoid about anything sexual, because governments dont like public criticism or because some big corporate business like sony are trying to get their civil rights enforced by criminal law. All these are going to add to the cost to us of the internet.

I think that is their intention. The powers that be are very scared of the Internet as a medium that people can express their views on freely without censorship. When challenged about the draconian Computer Crimes Act they like to pretend that the main justification is to protect children from pornography. That is why it is very important for them to have prosecutions like this, even though they probably enjoy looking at pornography themselves and couldn't care less about the rights of the girl who was depicted.

[sugarhead]

This is shamefull, the person serving time should be the person who posted not the forum people...

Lets see, if I buy paper and a pen, then use those to write a book that breaks Thai law, is it me or the pen and paper manufactures that go to jail????

Also why stop at the forum owner? What about the owner of the ISP that allowed him to upload the images, the computer manufactor that built the computer he used, the camera company of the camera he used, and so on?

you're 'alien', thus guilty...

[crocodilexp]

There are pictures of sex!? On the internet, no less!? What a surprise, I can't believe what this world has come to.

Law in Thailand is fun -- basically everything is illegal (e.g. anonymous internet usage, smoking in all bars, porn in any shape or form, prostitution). Of course, all of above is widespread and tolerated, until some unlucky soul gets caught.

Title is misleading, though. In all fairness to Thai courts, he did NOT get convicted for posting sex pictures on the internet (vague crime against public morality), but for damaging another person's reputation, after she complained (violating personal privacy). IMHO, this is not out of line if the user did not have a model release and posted the pictures -- even prostitutes should have a right to privacy.

Just noticed it was the board owner that got convicted, not the user who posted. TIT. In any sane legal system, this ruling would be taken to its absurd logical conclusion. By the same principle, in addition to the board owner, TOT, True, the electric company and the computer and software makers would be fined as well.

[JustinCredible]

So this is opposite to the law in USA where the Website owner is not held

liable for what a third party posts ?

Ummmmm, the answer is probably YES. Send in the Troops........

[Plus]

I hope the police are reasonable and if the owner didn't get a chance to see the pictures he wouldn't have been prosecuted.

If, however, he allowed them stay, he's liable.

In case of Prachatai, as I remember, the owners were charged after not removing LM stuff for quite some time, possibly months.

[Griffin09]

Public prosecutors charged that the crime took place from October 6 to November 30.

Oddly enough, it took them about 8 weeks to be offended.

[d0om4gloom]

I think that is their intention. The powers that be are very scared of the Internet as a medium that people can express their views on freely without censorship. When challenged about the draconian Computer Crimes Act they like to pretend that the main justification is to protect children from pornography. That is why it is very important for them to have prosecutions like this, even though they probably enjoy looking at pornography themselves and couldn't care less about the rights of the girl who was depicted.

Arkady, a lot of supositions in there but generally i agree. Its not limited to Thailand though, the whole world has been entering a new period of limiting our freedoms and freedom of speech since 2001 especially. Your tracked, your pictured, your bank accounts are monitored, your prosecuted when you step out of line. Oh and make sure your views are politically correct as well !

Having siad that, I do feel a forum owner is responsible for policing content posted although demostrating a strong policy, with user reporting and enforcement should be enough. Going to prison for someone else's misdemeanor is too harsh if the owner is making every effort to ensure that policy is enforced.

[glegolo]

Public prosecutors charged that the crime took place from October 6 to November 30.

Oddly enough, it took them about 8 weeks to be offended.

-------------------------------------------------

No it did not take them 2 month to be offended! But the siteowner let this go

on for 2 months. That is the real problem !!!

Glegolo

[Acharn]

So this is opposite to the law in USA where the Website owner is not held

liable for what a third party posts ?

Yes, but I would say it's even worse than that. The law is very vague and ambiguous, and requires anybody who runs any kind of network to maintain records of every person on the network at any time and every URL they connect to, for at least ninety days (I've seen one opinion that the law actually requires the records to be held for three years). In addition, as you point out, the network administrator (for example, the owner of a game shop) is responsible for every message transmitted to or from his network, whether it's on a publicly accessible message board or not. The law is absolutely horrible! If you own a business in Thailand or even have a home network you may very well be subject to these requirements. The record-keeping requirement is a nightmare because it's so unclear exactly what you have to keep.

[deanosan3]

Do you actually mean to say that there is now censorship in Thailand? (gasp!). Geez, so you mean a country run by one man can control the entire police force...that's such an outrageous idea I can't even get my farang head around it.

Thats good news for him. Why ruin this young mans life by throwing him inside? I love Thailand and I am pleased that they have chosen to recognize this mans potential and given him a second chance. Lets just hope he has the manpower to police his forum more stringently.

This kind of thing will kill off forums and any oportunity for ordinary people to make their views public without them being censored first - of course offensive mateiral should be taken down by the site manager whenever it is reported however if site managers are expectedt to police every post before it is published then the days of free forums like this are numbered. This isnt a gripe at Thailand - half the countries of the world are trying to introduce things like this either at the insistance of people who are paranoid about anything sexual, because governments dont like public criticism or because some big corporate business like sony are trying to get their civil rights enforced by criminal law. All these are going to add to the cost to us of the internet.

[thaitanic]

Most of you are talking codswallop. The website owner definitely has some liability, especially if the picture was allowed to remain for that long, and especially if he left it online after receiving a complaint. And it's highly likely she wasn't aware of its existence on his forum for the first few weeks.

[Acharn]

I hope the police are reasonable and if the owner didn't get a chance to see the pictures he wouldn't have been prosecuted.

If, however, he allowed them stay, he's liable.

In case of Prachatai, as I remember, the owners were charged after not removing LM stuff for quite some time, possibly months.

Hmmm. You may be right, but my memory of the Prachathai case is that is was about a day and a half, which seems like a reasonable length of time to find out about the posting and promptly remove it. The long time was that the prosecutor took over two years (or was it three?) to bring charges. I would say that all blog and message board owners who live in Thailand are going to have to moderate all posting, which means reading every post. Not too bad on most blogs, but pretty difficult on a busy message board. I have afeeling even the ThaiVisa moderators don't read every post.

[SoCoMoFo]

Sad you won't name the site......why even post the article?

[astral]

It just shows how careful web site owners have to be,

and why we Mods are prowling around.

[opalhort]

Just a general question:

If a forum/site owner is charged and fined or sentenced to jail under Thai law, does he/she has any recourse under Thai law to sue (criminal or civil) the person who posted the offending material?

opalhort