Thailand Bans YouTube for Offending the Royal Family
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | April 4, 2007 | Share This
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Today the government of Thailand blocked access to YouTube because the video service refused to remove a clip that mocks Thailand’s king. As reported by Reuters, criticism of the royal family is a crime in Thailand. One swiss man, for example, was sentenced to 10 years in jail for defacing images of the king.
This isn’t the first time the country has blocked YouTube - earlier last month, there were reports that Thai visitors to YT were re-directed to the homepage for Thailand’s Ministry of Communication and Technology. This is the first formal block, however, and could mark an increase of Thai censorship on social media. Check out 2bangkok.com for more on Thailand’s long history of discomfort with the Internet.
YouTube, however, seems to be a unique target of government censors worldwide. Last month Turkey blocked the site for hosting content that “insulted Turkishness”, and earlier this year Brazil blocked it for showing videos of model Daniela Cicarelli’s leaked sex tape.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens in Thailand if this video stays up - in the meantime, for all of our Thai searchviews readers, BoingBoing offers tips and tricks to sidestepping censorship.
Topics: Google, International, Search: Video |