Wonder how many counter lawsuits will follow by distorting webmasters tools of youtube for commercial and educational purposes. ICT to file charge against Google on Friday Information and Communications Technology Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom Tuesday said the ministry was preparing to file a charge against Google in Thailand after it refused to remove video clips that insulted His Majesty the King. The ministry had previously blocked access to the YouTube website, owned by Google, after it showed film clips deemed offensive to the monarchy. The government approached Google, but the company said it had no policy about content deemed offensive in Thailand. Sitthichai said the ministry would seek to file a charge with the Criminal Court on Friday.
Wonder which court? I also wonder if any other Governments will follow in this trend because they don't like what is on the internet about them. Personalized search monitoring your internet habits, giving the info to the governments, governments squashing information they don't like etc. Sure seems like we are getting closer and closer to Orwells 1984. Just substitute the TV in his book for Computer screen. Pretty scary if you ask me.
THey'll never win the case so who cares. It won't have any affect on the net in general. Also google may be jsut as rich as the monarchy lol.
They will sue them at an American court. There are some treaties that make this kind of lawsuits possible. It starts first in a Thai criminal court and which will proceed later on to the States. Alltogether it will be another black day in Thai history. After downgrading Thailand to priority watchlist for IP rights and others, this junta is very successful to destroy its own nation, not able to restore stability and security. They try to play now in international politics, instead of bringing peace to the South of Thailand as promised right after the coup. The real martial enemies they don't see or keep just a blind eye on it.
Some people never learned anything from public relations 101 it seems. The more you try and stop something the more popular it automatically becomes. Before the guy started complaining I bet you not even 1% of the people in thailand had seen it.
mrhmm... This is useless case, but... if they even could win anything (which I highly doubt), this would be interesting precedent.
its a publicity stunt but government fools are helping G to takeover the planet. There was similar case of Mahatma Gandhi being insulted, but Indian government didn't care.
I agree with you. this news just show that the government got no vision and no interest in ruling the country. some idiot & stupid guy use photoshop replace the king's face with monkey face. I really hate the one who did that clip and it's not an appropriate thing to do. After all, I'm thai and i know what's right and what's wrong. people should have respect in others and people should know what hey should do and what they should not do. (dont talk about human rights' crap) ok maybe i should stop this comment here before it lit up any fire. XD
Lol they wont win. I can post what ever i want on youtube except the things that are in the TOS. And what the user posted is not against the TOS. - Prilep
Google will Deffend thier side. So the thai community will loose, because Google doesn't control th uploaded file's and besides Google has a TOS...
Hey, only Americans can be sue happy in America. The issue with Youtube is extremely controversial due to the illegality of some of the videos posted.
But seriously you can they dont do anything about it. If they didnt post things like that then youtube wont be interesting lol . - Prilep
Thailand won't win this case and will not get sympathy for this as well, instead it will backfire a ten fold. There were no threats made against HMK and according to international law there is no criminal offence. Youtube does check uploaded videos though. Even the HMK said "I'm not beyound critics". Shouldn't Thailand as a whole take heed to this wisdom. Thailand is member of the UN and signed international treaties and therefore are bound by international rules as well. Even it is a moralistic questionable issue, it doesn't make it a crime. The whole issue was taken up to cover internal failure and inabilities by this junta who is in fact the real cause of the troubles. Looking at the overall situation in Thailand it seems that it is going back for at least 20 years and more. What that means? I don't have to explain, everybody knows.
The Thai govt now won't sue google and instead want the info from the poster of videos to be handed over to police and to sue those instead. Will that work? Govt to sue YouTube video posters (BangkokPost.com from Agencies) - The Information and Communication Technology Ministry escalated the battle against anti-monarchy Internet videos on Friday, and said it would demand YouTube.com hand over the Internet addresses of those who uploaded the clips. ICT Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom said authorities wanted to charge those who posted the mocking video clips with lese majeste, the crime of offending a monarch, which is punishable by up to15 years imprisonment. "The police will ask for information from the company to file criminal charges against them," he said. Mr Sitthichai did not say what might happen if YouTube refuses to hand over the information. A decision by YouTube or its owners to give such information to the Thai government would earn Thailand and Mr Sitthichai a firestorm of criticism across the Internet, and by civil rights groups around the world. The latest development came just as the kerfuffle over the videos appeared to be dying down and headed for a resolution. Mr Sitthichai issued the threat to demand IP addresses two days after Google, which owns YouTube.com, informed the ministry that it would remove controversial video clips from the website. In turn, the ministry cancelled plans to try to launch a cirminal suit against Google at the Bangkok Criminal Court on Friday. Mr Sitthichai said the ministry would unblock the YouTube website "immediately" - when all the clips were gone. As of Friday at 4:30 p.m. Thailand time, all or most of the offensive clips were still on the YouTube.com site, according to informants able to access the website. Data provided on YouTube claimed that the five most-seen videos that are meant to be offensive to the monarchy have been seen 137,000 times - a tiny number by YouTube standards, where popular videos routinely have more than 10 million views. The recent advertising spoof featuring Hillary Clinton has had more than 3.5 million views, and a 100-second video of a baby laughing has been viewed more than 14.9 million times. The site was blocked in Thailand since early April after clips mocking HM the King were found on the website.
yeah they know they wont win the case so they changed the target. but i dont think youtube will give that kind of information to Thai government or they will? probably it better to sue the poster not youtube itself XD