Thailand to sue Youtube for lese majeste
The Youtube fiasco roles on this week as the MICT has now announced that it plans to sue Youtube. This from the IHT:
Sitthichai Phokai-udom, the minister of information and communications technology said the refusal to remove the clip on grounds of free flow of communication was “total hypocrisy” since the YouTube owners Google censored their operation to gain access to the market in China.
“Thailand is a fairly small country and not the economic or military powerhouse, so we are at the mercy of the greedy businessman in America,” he said.
While I think suing the global internet behemoth that is Google won’t get very far, does Sitthichai have a point here? China is a huge market for the internet, and to miss out on that completely would be a great loss to Google and Youtube. However, Google could counter this argument by saying that Thailand is supposedly a democratic nation, whereas China is communist. The problem is therefore Google’s failure to take the lese majeste laws seriously. In effect, Thailand is trying to contain the entire world within the boundaries of its own values.
And what of all the other cases of lese majeste? There are countless websites on the net that people can (and cannot) access that mock HMtK. Is Paul Handley going to be sued as well? Or how about anyone else who criticises the monarchy outside of Thailand? This will certainly attract global media attention, and it can only end up having a negative effect on the current regime. I’ll bet whoever made that initial clip is unsure whether to laugh or cry at the global impact his actions have had.
‘This YouTube issue is about a private firm in the US trying to bully a small country like Thailand,’ Sittichai told the Bangkok Post newspaper.
I don’t see how Thailand, an entire nation, that is actually quite big, could possibly feel bullied by an internet company, especially considering Youtube offered to assist the MICT by teaching it how to use the internet. Perhaps the lessons about how to block individual videos were too hard. All this over one video. If they’d just ignored it, the offending clip would be buried beneath a million other videos by now, primarily because nobody outside of Thailand would have been able to see why it was offensive (more to the point, nobody would have cared). That’s where the global media helped out, by showing in great detail why the video and (its siblings) was so offensive to people in Thailand. You could argue that the world has been given a lesson in Thai values.
It’s all becoming rather petty.
May 4th, 2007 at 9:57 am
OI NO WAY HOW DUMB CAN U KEEP GETTING??
May 4th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Haha sue Google, hmm they have issues running the place let alone sue anyone!
May 4th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Now this brings up an interesting legal dilemma, and questions that first pop in my head are:
- Was the crime commited in Thailand, if so, does Lese Majeste apply?
- What are the views of His Majesty?
- How much is being set aside in legal fees? Would this money come from the taxpayer, if so surely the money would be better spent elsewhere (Dengue fever treatment and flood displacement comes to mind)
- Is this some pubicity stunt? Suing Google???
- Is the charge against the poster or Google as the parent owner of YouTube.com.
May 4th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
I agree with the logic of this blog entry. Sittichai is out of his mind. Before the YoutTube block, I was using it quite a bit for things unrelated to Thailand, but sometimes I checked it out for Thai vids. I didn’t even know that there was a lese majeste video until it became an international incident. If the government hadn’t made a big deal, perhaps a couple hundred people would have seen it. Now, Sittichai will be suing, and making it even a bigger incident than before. Who will he sue? YouTube didn’t make the video. Google didn’t make the video. YouTube is nothing but a website that uploads other people’s products. But this idiot Sitthichai has turned this into a greedy American businessman conspiracy. Madness, madness.
May 4th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, when will Thais start taking themselves less seriously? I’m sure this will result in even more video clips about Thailand.
May 5th, 2007 at 3:05 am
I would like to know what the guy who put that first clip on YouTube is thinking. And, how can Sitthichai say Thailand is small? There are more people in Bangkok than in ALL Switzerland…haha
May 5th, 2007 at 3:24 am
I am not sure that I understood correctly, but I think they plan to sue YouTube in Thailand, to give a legal background to the blocking (offending videos are not online anymore, but it’s still blocked, so it would be good to have a reason).
May 5th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Correction, offending videos are online and there are loads of them. Now out of Thailand I can see them, some have a point and some are just plain insults to provoke. The comments from some Thais on the postings are plain offensive too and some of them are simply pompous and show a lack of understanding of the world. It seems that the Thais commenting think the world must respect Thailand and love their king and refuse to accept any kind of criticism. When the Tak Bai incident was brought up in one thread several Thais laughed at what happened and said the the dead deserved it.
To be honest the best reaction, which some Thais have already stated, is to simply ignore it all. If there’s no response it will all fizzle away but whilst they write comments like “your mother’s a whore” and wish for their kids to die the posters will continue. They’re just baiting these guys and loving it. Nice to be able to use youtube.com again though.
May 5th, 2007 at 11:01 am
But youtube.com ISNT based in here, it’s a US based company and geographically located in the US.
The crime wasn’t commited here, and in the crime i’m talking about the process of it being shown, as this was done from servers located in the US.
Now they can go after the person who made it, if they are located in Thailand and the video was made here, on Thai soil, they are f**Ked.
They have no legal grounds to even think about fighting this and any decent lawyer will tell them this no doubt (after they have charged a small chunk of change)