YouTube incident becomes Internet crusade

[Flashermac]

We both live here and understand that. I don't give a flying fish if people outside of the country get upset and complain about the "censorship". They can post their rants somewhere else -- and not end up killing the board.

 

I liked things better when politics were banned. There are two main subjects that divide people and get them pissed off: politics and religion. This board is not really supposed to be about either one.

 

 

[elef]

We had bans on politics before, we have one now too but KS has allowed us to comment on news articles without too much politics. The problem is if we ban politics again a lot of guys will complain about censorship and speaking about internet as the place of free speech.

 

And how do you define politics, isn't a questioning of the closing hours political for example? Or are not Gadflys posts on thai economy, banks and BoT political?

 

Also remember that probabably this forum is the main source for many on information what's happening in Thailand.

 

Give KS some good arguments for and against banning of politics or just thai politics!

[Flashermac]

For:

 

1. According to the board guidelines, the Thai royals are not to be discussed. With the government currently in a "shut down" mode, all threads referring to them should be banned and deleted -- at least for the time being.

 

 

Against:

 

1. Some of the guys may bitch if they can't do everything they want.

 

 

p.s. This board is not a democracy. It is whatever KS wants it to be. I would leave it to the mods to decide when something is going too far -- and to zap it without argument.

 

 

[Gadfly]

And how do you define politics, isn't a questioning of the closing hours political for example? Or are not Gadflys posts on thai economy, banks and BoT political?

 

Good point about definitions. Like most everything else life, it's shades of gray rather than black and white - and a large dose of judgment.

 

Look at this way: the more interesting posts here - and Flashermac's posts are often the most interesting - tend to include a bit of commentary about some aspect of Thailand, and that means they often at least touch on politics. If you post on anything relating to to economic policy, you probably more likely to put a few more fingers on political issues. But if we are forced to eliminate all commentary, this would be a very dull board.

 

I think we need to excercise judgement and we need to defer to KS's judgment. I try to stay clear of taboo subjects, but I am sure I sometimes cut it close or perhaps, in the view of some, too close. I already sent a PM to one member here saying that I intended to pull back on anything political on this board, and then promptly breached that self-imposed rule when I saw something I thought was nonsense posted on this site.

 

Anyway, I do intend to try to pull back a bit. I personally think comments on closing times and unintended consequences are OK, but I do intend to pull back a bit on other issues until things settle down a bit more here (and this shows how hard it is to avoid even touching on politics - to explain why I intend to pull back, I had to allude to the situation here.)

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

Yep, fine tooth comb time...all references to those who should not be named i think should be deleted immediately...there's obviously a lot of folks perusing sites for evidence of 'national security' breaches and that appears to be a rather loose umbrella term with adhoc consequences coming to bare...i'm using rambling english for obvious reasons i hope you understand...

 

Lets just stick to the usual western govt. bashing rhetoric for now...hey, it might win us browny points!

[Flashermac]

Back to bashing Bush and Blur again then!

 

 

 

[itsmedave]

Maybe the trick is to confine posts to be information only when they get to sensitive issues as opposed to opinion and outrage.

 

Living in Thailand, you have access to some information those of us outside don't have. Also, living outside of Thailand, I may have access to some information you don't have...because of the censorship.

[Flashermac]

I see no problem in posting news from the Post or Nation.

[Gadfly]

Of course the more interesting information is the stuff that doesn't make in the papers. I knew about the plans to change the Foreign Business Act (and posted about it here) months before it made the press. For now, no more information like that from me.

[Lord Toad]

From Todays Bangkok and I beleive they have got it right in their conclusions:

 

 

YouTube affair out of control

The mishandling of the YouTube affair has again raised the question of the competence of the government. Authorities have escalated a hateful, homemade graffito into an international affair. Armed with a military-backed hammer to employ against the media, authorities have come to treat every problem as a nail that needs bashing. A foreign-based attack on the monarchy has escalated to the world's front pages. The government has banned the popular YouTube site completely, caused the anarchic internet community to produce a dozen new attacks, and now has shut the most popular discussion board inside Thailand. More hammer whacks seem likely to come. The arrogance of the American-hosted video site YouTube is complicit in this mishandling. The government asked YouTube to remove a hugely insulting video attack on the monarchy. YouTube's director of marketing and global spokeswoman Julie Supan noted that YouTube also hosts scurrilous videos which attack US President George W. Bush. This is breathtakingly insulting. She seems oblivious to the difference between a monarch and a politician. Even more troubling, she doesn't appear to know or care that YouTube has many videos attacking Thai politicians including the current prime minister. No one has a problem with that.

The unfortunate yet repeated comparisons of the Thai monarchy and the US presidency by Ms Supan display a deep and endemic lack of knowledge about the world and its vast differences. But despite this cavalier dismissal of the Thai nation's and government's complaint, YouTube is far from the libertarian, say-anything service that Ms Supan implies. Pornography aside, the website routinely removes tasteless and political videos. Anti-Muslim videos are removed if any viewer complains, not just governments or religious bodies.

Given the dismissive reaction by YouTube to the initial Thai government complaint, one can almost sympathise with Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, the minister of information and communication technology. He noted, probably correctly, that YouTube considered that Thailand is just too insignificant to notice.

Immediately after his appointment more than six months ago, the minister began a concerted effort to try to control the Thai internet, both its providers and its users. He has not stopped and his motives are clearly political, despite his constant references to protecting the children.

Mr Sitthichai has made two crucial errors in his campaign to step up and extend his mishandling of the YouTube affair to general internet controls.

He is actually undermining the core support for his government and the Council for National Security, which consists of the anti-Thaksin Shinawatra middle-class. His shutdown of the popular Ratchadamnoen chatroom at Pantip.com will push discussion underground. Worse, he has warned that posters at other chatrooms are somehow violating national security by discussing issues such as this newspaper's revelation of a 12-million-baht anti-Thaksin propaganda campaign by the military.

Mr Sitthichai and the entire government and the military junta supporting him seem unable to get a grasp on today's modern communications. Big internet discussion sites can no more control what is posted than the telephone companies can police what callers talk about, or the post offices can control the contents of the mail they deliver. The minister has failed to discern a key problem: The more that he publicly lashes YouTube and its users for posting attacks on the monarchy, the more such attacks will appear in myriad places. There even is a term for this: ''gone viral''.

They already have mushroomed on YouTube and other such sites, of which there are hundreds. Now immersed in a deep hole, Mr Sitthichai continues to dig. Cool heads _ the government, the CNS or both _ should intervene. The correct public reaction to a foreign-based media attack on the Thai institutions is nothing. The government, businesses and the often cooperative diplomats of foreign countries such as the US State Department can work to eliminate problems like a single YouTube video. Mr Sitthichai has publicised the attack unnecessarily.

Just as importantly, he is alienating most of the educated middle-class who must support the efforts to prepare for a democratic regime.

 

 

PS; As a sage old British politician used to say: "When in a hole stop digging"