I was wondering why all of the YouTube videos on my blog were coming up blank. A 1-minute video has appeared on YouTube that shows the Thai king with his face painted like a clown, and feet over his head (a very insulting thing). Thailand has blocked all access to YouTube until they remove the video.Missing YouTube for a little while is, of course, no big deal for Thailand. Now, what would be really interesting is if the Thai government actually shut down the country's access to the online gaming world, Warcraft, which hundreds of thousands of Thai kids are — more or less — addicted to.
Sorry Thailand, but we live in a world of free information now, and information is only going to become more free in the future. You can try as hard as you want to block some of it, but my suggestion would be to focus your effort on learning how to live with that information instead.
UPDATE:
As expected, even though the first person's video was removed and his account canceled, another person popped up with a video even more offensive to the king. Hate to say I saw that one coming.
6 comments:
You're playing a risky game. By not only describing the offense against the king but going as far as to say the government should accept it and all the "free information" of the world, you could be charged with les mejeste.
You may get off on it, but this blog, or at least the way you write it, is pretty dumb as a whole. You're obviously working in Thailand without a work permit, paying no taxes to the government and yet often criticizing Thailand.
You make no secret of the fact you life in Pattaya and the places you go are often described. The names of your associates are published here and your identity and even picture could be discovered in an afternoon's work by myself, by Thai immigration, the police or pretty much anyone out to get you.
You might want to think your wannabe-celebrtiy talking-head aspirations if you want to continue to live in the Kingdom.
He is one White Trash step away from a visit.
Not a very bright boy our little wanna be blogger is.
1. Describing the crime is not the same as committing the crime. When the Thai media reported that a Swiss man had painted the king's face with black spray paint, did you speak up then as well because they described the offense? Didn't think so.
2. The landlord for the house I rented in 2004 was a police major here in Pattaya. I talked with both him and with one of his friends in immigration when we were sitting around one night. They currently have no regulations regarding internet-based work in Thailand. Since I am working for an American company over the internet on a computer in Washington, D.C., and the work is being published in Washington, D.C., they figure that what I'm doing here isn't their concern.
By the way, I appreciate the fact that you think I'm so popular and of exceptional renown that I could someday bubble to the top of the Thai Government's To-Do List in some grand "Stop Jil From Writing About Thailand" campaign. Hmm... it would certainly necessitate the move to Sihunoukville for me. Well... we'll see.
However, since this blog has been criticizing and poking fun about the annoying aspects of Thailand (and talking about my daily life and work) for almost 2 years now... and I was doing the same thing in another blog on another website for 2 years prior to that, for a grand total of 4 years of blogging about things here in Thailand (and I assure you that people like you have been stopping by and leaving the same comments about how I'm thisclose to getting kicked out of here for the things I write for every one of those 4 years)... I won't hold my breath.
up to you. There's always a first time. And annoy the people who point out how stupid you are and you only give them more motivation to fuck you. And you deserved to get fucked.
It's one of the amazing aspects of humanity that people can't ascribe to others the same intelligence that they ascribe to themselves.
I assume you're a smart person. If you were working in Thailand illegally, would you be stupid enough to write about it on the internet? If not, what makes you think I would be?
The only thing that differentiates us is your paranoia and certainty that the government of Thailand is some evil, oppressive organization that tosses foreigners out of their country at the first sign of criticism. If you can show me one example of such a thing ever happening... for criticism even 10 times as harsh as what I've written... I'd be impressed.
Why you can't figure these things out on your own is beyond me.
And if your life is so boring and empty that you need to spend your time trying to make some guy in Thailand you've never met... who has never done anything to you, and whom you really know nothing about miserable... by all means, have fun — but I really do think you are smarter than that.
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