As of 3rd April, 2007, Thailand has been unable to view Youtube.com because of a small joke in which the royal family couldn't tolerate hence the Ministry of Communication and Information (MCI) has permanently blocked Youtube.com.

If you're going to post sparring clips, or other things, and you want some pointers by me, your glorious mod, please instead of using youtube.com use http://video.google.com or www.photobucket.com so I can view too.

You're all dismissed now. Have a nice day.

-Taison out

Do you think over the top to block youtube?.....the poster was clearly a disrespectful moron but got the reaction he likely desired. I read the posts under the clip before it was removed. Got alot of Thais blood thirsty for him. IMO they should have just let it be because its only a question of time before something else appears on another vid host site.

To be honest, I could care less about the king since the one I swore loyalty to is King Carl XVI Gustaf. Not that I disrespect the Thai king, and I do say he's one awesome king, with all the innovation he's done, but honestly, I just want my youtube back.

If I do ever meet the guy who did that clip, I'm going to strangle him, not because he offended the king, because he got my youtube blocked. I had saved around 20 videos which I used to study from such as techniques and stuff, but now I can't view them (some were 20 min). And I was just getting a hang of the rubber guard, but now it's gone thanks to him. He/She/It deserves to be mutilated, publicly hanged and then have his corpse dragged along the road of Bangkok and then dumped into a dumpster, or just leave it to rot somewhere where people can take a [censored] on him.

Ok, sorry for being vulgar, but that's what I feel about him/her/it at this moment.

I didn't get to see the clip though. I woke up one morning and read on the MCI webpage that youtube.com had been blocked and then saw some responses but I have no idea what was being played in the clip.

IMO, if people can't take a joke, then they need to stop and think for a moment, that there are billions of people who don't take them seriously no matter their effort. Look at the US president, he's been ridiculed, laughed at and made fun off, he doesn't go around censoring stuff. In my honest opinion, censoring is a form of autocracy, or simply put, an act of a dictator. If you need to go around and censor everything that's being put down, then you know that something's wrong somewhere. More or less, you've got something to hide by censoring. After all, isn't Thailand the land of the "free"? "Free will, free speech"?

If they don't get me back my youtube by next week, I'm going to officially change my screen name!

-Taison out

I've only just found out about this but I still don't understand what happened, Who insulted the king?

<<To be honest, I could care less about the king since the one I swore loyalty to is King Carl XVI Gustaf>>

You are a rare thai (ok half swede, but a thai national non the less) to say this (do you know of other thais who share this sentiment, i'd be curious to hear, its a no go subject with my mrs!), ime and knowledge thais treat the king almost as a living god and are highly sensitive to criticism about him. (that swiss guy who defaced the kings picture was lucky not to be lynched, I think it took several policemen to escort him to safety!) I'm convinced its driven by love and not fear of not following the herd general consensus, however he does seem to have a unhealthy cult like following. I dread to think what will happen in thailand when the king passes away.

I'd guess the king had no say in whether youtube should be banned or not....?

Anyway, its refreshing to hear such a point of view. All said and done excessive respect for the monarchy is better than too little as the british monarchy seems to have these days.

No disrespect to the King or the Thai government, but in the modern internet age, what value is there in censoring one website in one country? The whole rest of the internet-connected world still can view the video, and isn't there a good chance that the video will pop up on other sites in Thailand?

It's like trying to strangle smoke.

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You are a rare thai (ok half swede, but a thai national non the less) to say

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Most Thais consider me a banana. Yellow on the outside, white on the inside.

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do you know of other thais who share this sentiment

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No one.

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thais treat the king almost as a living god and are highly sensitive to criticism about him.

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Treat him as a god, they do. But in my honest honest opinion, he's human. If he can't tolerate this stuff, how really 'divine' is he?

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he does seem to have a unhealthy cult like following

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And not only that, he has waay too much influence over, well, just about everything in this country.

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I dread to think what will happen in thailand when the king passes away.

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This is hard for me to answer, some want Thailand to be a republic after the king, some want the crown prince. I don't really care.

Before I get me head chopped off, let me go onto MattJ.

Agreed with you there, Boss. Banning one site, in one country is ridiculous. What's next? Wikipedia? IMEEM? CNN? BBC? Censoring is BS imo. People deserve the right to express their opinion and receive any and all opinions if they so please.

Do note, I'm not mad at the MCI, the King or anything political. I'm really mad at censoring. The whole idea of censoring is just plain stupid and is soo WWII era. Hello? We're in the year 2007, a new millenium, we can pretty much do whatever we want, and believe whatever we want.

-Taison out

You can't use a proxy or something like that to get around this block?

You can also watch vids on www.dailymotion.com ... Better site then Youtube IMO

ahh i know it sucks Taison

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"YouTube, the popular video sharing Web site, should seriously consider changing its name to ‘SueTube’, what with all the copyright infringements cases and more. This time, Thailand’s Ministry of Information and Communication Technology has set up a committee to consider filing a criminal lawsuit against Google, as the company rejected Thai appeals to remove controversial video clips of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej.


Thailand’s Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom said that Google, who is the patent company of YouTube ignored the request, stating that it is now necessary for Thailand to sue in order to force the company to remove the clips that were deemed insulting to the King.


In fact, since April 4, the Ministry has blocked YouTube after it showed the controversial video clips. Also, last month, Sitthichai said that Google had ignored Thailand’s petition because the Kingdom is a small country, while it agreed to China’s request that some clips be censored.


He charged that Google cited freedom of information as the reason for not exercising censorship here but it earlier agreed to censor its website in China.


Sitthichai also said that His Majesty the King is the most revered figure for Thai people, and noted that foreigners do not really understand this sentiment.


Apparently, the Ministry will soon be appointing an Internet inspector responsible for monitoring all Internet content."

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