Crackdown On Obscene Content For Mobiles

[george]

Crackdown on obscene content for mobiles

BANGKOK: The Culture Ministry will ask police to arrest download operators providing what it regards as obscene or sexually explicit graphics for mobile phones.

The ministry agreed to spearhead the action following a joint meeting of concerned agencies organised by the House committee on youths, women and the elderly, said Lalita Rerksamran, chairwoman of the House panel.

Attending the meeting were representatives from the Culture Ministry, Royal Thai Police, CAT Telecom and TOT Corp.

Several operators provide services for mobilephone users to load the offending graphics for use as screensavers, sending picture messages or as a logo replacement.

Some graphics are of animated sex.

Operators are known to hand out leaflets to teens at department stores, providing them with codes to download graphics onto their handsets.

Lalita said some new mobilephone models used a fast multimedia network to download fulllength Xrated movies.

Vice Culture Minister Veerasak Kowsurat said the ministry would invoke Article 287 of the Criminal Code to file complaints with police against operators who provided obscene graphics for downloading.

“The operators may think that providing drawings – not real photos of sex in action – will not violate the Criminal Code. But they are wrong, as the article prohibits distribution of pornographic material in any form,” Veerasak said.

He said the ministry would also take action against operators who published and distributed leaflets as manuals for downloading obscene pictures and graphics.

The ministry had also assigned CAT and TOT to inform mobilephone operators to cancel contracts with ringtone and graphicdownload operators who provided pornographic pictures for downloading.

Lalita said police had also proposed that users of prepaid mobilephone services be registered so that authorities could check the phone records of criminals.

The House panel would ask the Interior Ministry to issue a new directive requiring the use of an identification card when buying prepaid phone services.

In another development, Veerasak said Deputy Prime Minister Vishanu Kruangam called a meeting of relevant government agencies which decided that the Culture Ministry would take action against anyone caught advertising illegal services and amulets.

--The Nation 2004-03-04

[Moving]

Appears the current PM and legislators are claiming the moral high ground. But in the end it will serve as yet another example of a rule/law that they will not can not enforce.

Could we get some of these to replace our Smilies

[El_D]

In another development, Veerasak said Deputy Prime Minister Vishanu Kruangam called a meeting of relevant government agencies which decided that the Culture Ministry would take action against anyone caught advertising illegal services and amulets.

Deputy PM Vishanu also added that the police box located at the corner of Sukhumvit Soi 11 would continue to viciously prosecute farangs for dropping cigarrete butts on the ground while blatantly ignoring the pornographic DVD sidewalk merchants located 10 feet from said police box.

Nah, he didn't really say that but TIT............

[britmaveric]

Obviously Thai Govt doesn't have anything better to do! Now how in the world are they going to enforce that law?

[snoophound]

Certainly amazing how petty this govt can be.

Surely they have more important priorities,like the war on poverty etc.

[Moving]

After I re-read this I became a little concerned...just what does this statement mean?

"Lalita said police had also proposed that users of prepaid mobile phone services be registered so that authorities could check the phone records of criminals."

I, as a prepaid mobile phone service user, have some reservations about being "registered"...

[castelleone]

Moving, I agree with you and share your concern. I feel, this is another way of controlling people. Big brother....

[ChiangMaiThai]

But of course we can all walk down the street in any city in Thailand and have an orgy with a dozen girls if we're ready to pay for it. And the governemnt wants to protect the kids from cartoons on mobile phones. Jesus Christ.

[Up2U]

And this shows how these neanderthals still cannot grasp the internsational nature (more of a 'no borders' global phenomenon) of the new electronic era.

It doesn't matter where you live anymore, you can work in a virtual office in New York, Brisbane, Algiers or Wagga Wagga. And be paid there, or in any country of your choice. (Unless you have to fill in a thousand forms for a British Bank to transfer money to Thailand. It really is a pain!)

There is no longer the political control over people, if they have the means to communicate through the Internet. When will politicians wake up to this? Not just crime is internationalised, but commerce, commnication in general.

This letter may be read by 100 or more people, throughout the world - ignored by most, criticised by a few and liked by me. But fifteen years ago I could not have done this - now millions do, every hour of every day.

And Toxin wants to control it - PAH !

[astral]

As you say, totally unworkable.

No doubt they will be asking farangs for work permits again, to use a phone.

Totally out of touch with reality.

What are they going to do about all the phones that get stolen?

They cannot even control big items like cars and motorcycles that also need

registration, how do they hope to manage the tiny mobile phone.

[Guest timbee]

astral, if you try applying for a hutch phone, you'll find they're still expecting farang to have work permits. my 17 yr old daughter was able to get a hutch phone, practically instantaneously, by only supplying her national id card: never mind that i pay her bills, when i approached the counter, i was given the brush off - clearly a work permit is proof of financial wellbeing (ha ha ha!) and there are no landed gentlemen farang or retiree farang with this status. none that need phones, anyway. so i turned to my daughter and told her to purchase a second phone. the dumb customer service rep's chin practically hit her chest, as she clearly hadn't thought of that one. i got my phone.

no worries about registries either. big brother in thailand is too incompetent. i insured the bkk metro police for a few years and each year when i renewed their policy, i would visit the police welfare dept on rama i rd ... as recently as 3 yrs ago, they were still unable to supply me a name list (they knew how many they had, but not who), as this would have had to have been compiled independently by each police station, before collation. Asking about their payroll, I was shown the accounting department ... in 1999, not a computer in sight. Our pre-Y2K puter dinosaurs were one of the annual presents we gave them for renewing their policy. There were lots of fridges and air cons on view too, donated by other wellwishers like me. And all the while, the colonel was selling sidearms to his colleagues ... on the side, so to speak.

dr surapong at the ict ministry says he's issued 10,000 smart id cards, a la malaysian model ... these to replace the plastic magnetic version which has still not been distributed to all thais. similarly, there are no eligibility lists of socso or 30 baht entitlements. architecture has been proposed, but no action yet. now, there's a mega project that ought to be worth a few bucks to the usual crew!

no, a national registry, one accessible from a network of authorised enquirers, is still a long ways off.

[MekhongKurt]

Maybe a motive behind this move is to distract foreigners and Thais alike from thinking about the controversy over the now-abandoned plans to enforce new laws regarding when entertainment venues can be open (abandoned for those licesend prior to January 13, 2004 anyway) and even more importantly, to deflect Thai attention in particular away from the EGAT controversy and the persistent bird flu cover-up allegations still floating around.

As a friend of mine once said, "He who seeks logic in Thais' thought processes is doomed to descending into madness." A bit too broad a statement, but I have had plenty of "opportunities" to recall it -- ruefully!

[fatter than harry]

Jesus! is phonewrist becoming the new birdflu?! Will we see the government belatedly cull all erickson T541's?!

[dkstoney]

Some graphics are of animated sex.

Operators are known to hand out leaflets to teens at department stores, providing them with codes to download graphics onto their handsets.

“The operators may think that providing drawings – not real photos of sex in action – will not violate the Criminal Code. But they are wrong, as the article prohibits distribution of pornographic material in any form,” Veerasak said.

People have sex.

They should just focus their efforts on controlling the distribution of the flyers to minors. Why would anyone give a sh*t what I put on my tiny little cell phone screen? With all the corruption, nepotism, and prostitution you'd think that cell phone screensavers would be the least of their worries.

There're schools burning down in the south, for Pete's sake!!! There are 7 year old kids in plain sight sniffing glue!!! Villagers are selling their children into servitude!!! People are coming here on vacation to chop up their wives!!!

Get a grip, Toxin & Co! My nephew could run this country while playing Nintendo in the back of a moving pick-up truck better than you do now.

[dkstoney]

Deputy PM Vishanu also added that the police box located at the corner of Sukhumvit Soi 11 would continue to viciously prosecute farangs for dropping cigarrete butts on the ground while blatantly ignoring the pornographic DVD sidewalk merchants located 10 feet from said police box.

I guess the coppers & politicians aren't getting any kickbacks from the pornographic screensavers.

[Pi Sua]

Maybe a motive behind this move is to distract foreigners and Thais alike from thinking about the controversy over the now-abandoned plans to enforce new laws regarding when entertainment venues can be open (abandoned for those licesend prior to January 13, 2004 anyway) and even more importantly, to deflect Thai attention in particular away from the EGAT controversy and the persistent bird flu cover-up allegations still floating around.

I agree with that but I had been thinking that it was to distract the Thai first and likely to registered every one spying on their conversations.

Every thing is going on that way. Just an hour ago as it has been for about 10 days and few times per day, the police were enforcing the law for the helmets and I had never seen that here since I have been here and it's been quite a few years.

Good or not is not the deal here but they put hight pressure on their citizens, every day and on everything. They'll probably announce a high score in "life saved" that would be pure propaganda. If they really want to limit the accident they should better enforce the way the Thai drivers get their licence because they do not know any rules and it's not wearing a helmet that will help them to prevent accidents . So now here, the drivers wear helmet, often with one or two kids on the motorbike...without helmet and the police say nothing .

Like the pornographic on the phone, take the problem at its base.

That was toward the goal to say that if they had to shut down the erotic scenes on the mobils (I do not have personnaly, probably because I can't download any on my antic), Shin corp should be targeted first because it has developped the communication in Thailand and the main spread of sex these days is....communication.

Never forget if we can't download from the internet, we can store pictures on the phone, which can be worse than some cartoons (I call it like that because I've never seen any)

About farang, this government do not care about the second worldclass citizens' thinking...because we have no right even married with a Thai and having children, we have to beg to stay with our family.

Also they know that the thai farmers or any poor or middle class Thai citizens are not going to read the new innoffensive Bangkok post, nor The Nation.

They "shot" or "took the temperature" in the nightlife and now they're shooting in mobile phones. Everything the young Thai like...maybe after that they'll say as they say for the nightlife...it'll be posponed.

And during this worrying time, they'll have done worse.

Thaksidomie is a real entertainment.

[eric1000]

Could we get some of these to replace our Smilies

how about a verticle smilie ?

[Moving]

Could we get some of these to replace our Smilies

how about a verticle smilie ?

Eric, could we get one that would 'wink' at you?

[et33.com]

let there be more love

in every part of life

all the imposing of rules

made the fire of desires burn stronger

why not give them all they want

they will soon get tired and sick of it

and then the peace will come

when they realised that

too much of anything

makes you sick to the core soon....

buddha said---

the middle path is the way...

[The Quill]

Nor is Dear Leader which is the most likely issue.

I have fond hopes that in the next 12 months, Thailand will wake up to the fact, that there are no leprechauns..even here...

[mouse]

Obviously Thai Govt doesn't have anything better to do! Now how in the world are they going to enforce that law? 

They will call you and ask to meet you at such and such police station and to bring your phone with you. Then they will inspect it, while crime runs rampant on the adjacent Soi. The have the numbers to call but just do not know who they belong yet.

[Moving]

buddha said---

the middle path is the way...

AND my father, who had no particular religion...just didn't believe in lying and felt he should treat ladies with respect and mind his own business, and others should do the same....gave me a little advice when I sent off from the farm to see the world.

...if you think a guy is going to hit you...then you hit him first, as hard as you can and when he is not expecting it.

...And, remember whiskey and 'Wheaties' ( a US breakfast cereal lauded to make you run faster, and jump higher), have a lot in common...too much of either one will make you sick. Guess his way of saying the 'middle of the path' or moderation is good.