I wouldn't even dare to imagine myself living in a country where I'm not allowed to spend hours and hours of my day on the god of all video websites out there that is youube. Unfortunately, that is what is happening right now in Thailand. The thai government has blocked access to the website as a result of videos deemed offensive to our beloved king, Bhumibol Adulyadej. Hope it's not too late now for me to write on this hot issue...

I've been involved in some internet war of words on this topic myself. This is so un-me! I've always tried to stay away from reading and responding to insulting comments on webboards ever since I was 14 or something. But after going through several rather stupid comments on youtube, I've decided to respond. Just for once I kind of forgot my normal policy of refraining from using aggressive or provocative words, but I think those people truly deserved them! คอมเม้นเกรียนๆ อย่างงั้น ต้องตอบโต้อย่างเกรียน จะให้มันทำอยู่ฝ่ายเดียวได้ไง

What I'm going to write here is nothing special really.. It's just based on a lot of personal feelings and opinion. Feel free to disagree.


1. This is certainly not the first time that a government has blocked access to youtube. Brazil and Turkey, for example, have banned youtube in the past. I think in Turkey's case the reason was very similar to Thailand's; the Turkish government found a video thought to be unacceptably offensive to Ataturk, their national hero. However, in Thailand's case there is more than the ban on youtube that caught the spotlight. At roughly the same time a Swiss man was arrested and given a 10-year jail sentence for violating the Thai lese-majeste laws. Apparently this was pretty big news in the West, with many people expressing sympathy for the man and condemning the Thai government and, incorrectly, the king for the extreme punishment based on a draconian law. Personally I think as the Swiss man has lived in Thailand for 10 years, he must have known the law very well so he really has no excuses (apart from being drunk at the time). But as is always the case, the king has already pardoned him.

I will look at the story of the Swiss man a bit more here. A lot of people, including myself, have tried to justify the actions of the Thai government by saying that as he was living in Thailand he had to follow Thai laws like everyone else. "When in Rome, do as Romans do". But after a second thought I think in some parts of the world, lots of seemingly irrational laws are enforced. Taliban's extreme Islamist rule in Afghanistan would be a good example. If the laws made by them are so repressive, should everyone in the country still follow them? Should the outside world refrain from intervening because it was a country's internal affairs? As for Thailand and the lese-majeste laws, we may be giving to the Western world the impression of backwardness and oppression just like the Taliban government did.

Besides, in my very personal opinion, laws are made by the state, right? And so what actually constitutes the existence of a state in the first place? If we take a widely accepted definition of a state by Max Weber, a state is an entity which holds a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force over a given territory. This means when an armed faction manages to overcome other factions in a country, they can establish themselves as the rightful ruler of that country and outlaw those who do not comply. In parts of the world where governments are fighting against "rebels" (eg. Sri Lanka vs Tamil Tigers, Russia vs Chechnya), we can pretty much see them as one larger army fighting a smaller one. From this point of view no one actually has a right to claim sovereignty over a territory. They need armed forces to maintain control and also their ability to make laws. Following this, we can see that laws are not always made by those who really should be making them, which makes it difficult to always accept that everyone in a country should follow the laws of that country. Of course we can argue that if a state is democratic, then it has the right to make laws because people have given the consent to the elected body (and sadly this is not the case with Thailand at the moment). Therefore in Taliban's case the laws should not be followed because the state was a dictatorship. But still, didn't Hitler use democratic means to increase his power before becoming fully autocratic? There is really a fine line between democracy and majoritarianism. Also, Israel is a democracy, but does it have the rightful claim of existence at all? Ask the Arab nations.

(Lawyers, correct me if I'm wrong. ^_^ )



2. Even if we have come to agree that the Thai lese-majeste laws are indeed draconian, does the fact that the Swiss guy was pardoned make it clear that the laws only exist for symbolic reasons - to show how much the king is revered by the Thais? And so if in reality these laws are symbolic, they are in fact nothing to worry about. Am I right here? Again, lawyers, please enlighten me.



3. Banning youtube is not a small matter. It's certainly not like banning a porn website or something. Seems obvious, right? Well, I'm saying this because an anonymous MICT official has said in an interview that the decision to block youtube was not a big one because there are hundreds of other video-sharing sites out there. Well ok, that's very true, but I couldn't help saying to myself "Does this guy actually know anything about the internet at all?". Surely there are lots of other sites that work like youtube, but the sheer scale and popularity of youtube is the reason why people now say "going on youtube" as synonymous to viewing videos on the internet, much like how "google" has become the word for internet searching.



4. Notice the parallel of all this anti-youtube sentiment in Thailand and the anti-Singapore feelings a few months ago. It's good that Thai people are strongly willing to defend their long-held values at all costs. My only concern is that if some wicked people know how to use sensitive issues to provoke the mass, Thai people will be easily manipulated. We have to be careful.



5. Google possibly being hypocritical? As far as I know, youtube has ignored the request of the Thai government to remove the videos in question. I don't know the exact reason, but people seem to imply that youtube believes in "freedom of speech". The videos that disappeared were all removed by the owners, not by youtube. Ok, now youtube is owned by google right? If they genuinely want to protect freedom of speech, how come Google agreed to run a censored version of their website in China (www.google.cn)? Why did they want to please the Chinese government and not the Thai one? Is that because Google can't afford to miss out on the huge Chinese market while our country is simply not important enough for them? Does the word double-standard ring a bell?



6. Freedom of speech. Ahh... the big issue. I want to say here that I firmly believe that freedom of speech is a fundamental right of all individuals. Without it, I wouldn't be sitting here writing this note. But I also believe that everyone ought to use their freedom with responsibility. To quote the famous line from Spider-man, "with great powers comes great responsibility". What did the makers of these videos want to achieve? Just to uphold freedom of speech, they have managed to anger a nation of 64 million. Was it really worth it? After going through the comments on youtube, I figured that quite a few people think freedom of speech has no limits. This, in my view, is an example of people blindly trying to justify their desire to do anything they want. Yes, the law does guarantee freedom of speech and yes, posting videos like those on youtube does not violate their laws. But should people still do everything else as long as the law does not forbid them? Take the ex-PM of Thailand for example. His tax-free sale of Shin corp to Temasek was perfectly lawful, but ask Thai people how they feel. How can the government expect them to pay taxes when the already wealthy prime minister himself was evading them? Here I think freedom of speech, and even liberty in general, cannot exist without moral and cultural considerations.

Even J.S. Mill, the celebrated writer on the topic of liberty, clearly set out the limits of liberty in his book. Although his "Harm Principle" was put forward 150 years ago and does not seem too relevant today, I'm pointing out that he also believed that one does need to take moral considerations into account when doing something. And here, morality effectively acts as limits of liberty. Liberty should be used to bring about other good things. Liberty is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

Also, if freedom of speech means people are allowed to say or write anything, why then do people sue each other on grounds of libel? I need help from lawyers again. ^_^



7. Cultural differences. It seems that many people see our king as an old-fashioned absolute monarch who rules by terror. They think we Thai people say we love the king because we fear him. This is entirely not true. The king is genuinely loved by his people. Where else in the world can you see everybody in the street voluntarily wearing yellow shirts to show their respect to a monarch? But lots of outside observers don't understand this. From their point of view the king is comparable to other rulers who actively used personality cult to maintain their power, like Stalin and Kim Jong-Il. This, I'd say, is due to cultural differences. Westerners have never lived in a country like Thailand, where the king is the only hope for residents in the countryside who have long suffered from underdevelopment and corrupted politicians. Historical monarchs in the West in general tended to be cruel, autocratic rulers that cared about their own wealth more than their subjects. When Westerners have never seen a monarch like our king, why should we expect them to fully understand the level of respect we give to him?

But again, the same idea could be used against us. The idea of freedom of speech originated in the West. Thai people have never lived in the West, so why should Westerners expect us to understand freedom of speech?





And that's it! My thoughts on this topic. Feel free to comment, criticise or discuss.