I'm undecided as yet on the green thing. Almost certainly more 'green' than Labour though...
No YouTube Page 2
You're right ajp, I was thinking in terms of seats, dunno why.
I feel like we should talk more about the Thai situation, seen as it's the topic. If you're still around Something, I'd like to know what you feel about the subject along with those around you.
censorship is ******* ******
Well, obviously I'd prefer not to have my Internet activity censored, but I guess I can live with it. No one is forcing me to live here. As far as I'm aware, the YouTube problem is because of some insult(s) to the Thai royal family. As far as the Thai people are concerned His Majesty the King is like a god. You can go to prison for insulting him.
A Swiss man got drunk and defaced a poster of HM the King a few weeks ago and was sentenced to 75 years in jail. If you're in Thailand it's extremely unwise to be anything less than respectful if you wish to avoid spending the rest of your life in prison.
(Just been told that the Swiss man has since been pardoned and deported. Rumour has it that HM the King himself doesn't approve of the law as it is, but it's a constitutional monarchy - he doesn't make the rules.)
Yeah I heard about the Swiss guy, and that's interesting that the King himself may not a pprove of it. I think the thing for me, and perhaps those that don't live in Thailand or other countries with similar laws and policies, is that it seems quite extreme and supressive. But as you say people live with it and, if they feel the King is like a God, will actually support it. Is that the general feeling amongst the Thai people?
Yes, I think that most Thai people support this. HM the King really does do a lot of good work for his people and deserves their love and respect. It's not difficult to be respectful of such a good monarch.
At least we are allowed to criticise the politicians. 
As for the Swiss guy, we've heard various stories about what goaded him into defacing the posters. Whatever his reasons were it's total stupidity to do something like that. This is Thailand. They make the rules and if you want to stay here then you're well advised to follow them. They're actually a very tolerant race when it comes to most day to day things.
Yeah that's it you see, we can hear the word 'censorship' and immediately jump to assumptions of tyrany (I know I'm guilty of it) but when you understand the way things work over there and how people feel, it actually sheds quite a different light.
Are you Thai yourself?
No, I'm not Thai. I'm Scottish.
The current situation is unusual as apart from the YouTube ban (and the odd story in the papers about some twit like the Swiss guy) it doesn't really affect us at all. I am perfectly happy to be respectful.
You probably know we had a coup last year. That was interesting. Most people breathed a sigh of relief to get rid of Toxin. There was a fairly jubilant mood. At first we were concerned that we might not be allowed access at all to the Internet, but the interim govt. was happy to keep it and the news channels open.
The first we were aware of the coup was when someone posted on our forum asking if we were OK. We were like, "Coup? What coup?" The BBC went down for us and we thought it had been blocked but it was probably just a coincidence because of bad weather, as we were still able to get German TV, and the Internet was up the whole time.
Yeah thought your English was very good 
. This is great. I mean, I have lectures on this kind of thing but actually getting first hand grass roots opinion on it is really interesting.
Glad to help. HM the King is probably the best influence we could have on Thai politics. When corrupt governments and coups are fairly common, His Majesty provides a very stabilising influence. For sure we would all be much worse off without him.
The interim govt. appears to have the support of H M the King too, which is very reassuring. After the coup, as far as I'm aware, the interim govt. asked the media to exercise self censorship, ie not to publish stuff to inflame the situation. Certainly we were very relieved to be able to stay connected, otherwise we might've had to naff off to Cambodia or somewhere till we could get back online.
Despite having lived here for a while and been on visits for years before that, I'd never really thought about censorship here. It's just this YouTube ban that brought it to my attention. I wouldn't class Thailand as a country that has heavy censorship.
Yeah, from what I could gather about China censorship is the in thing . Newspapers, television, even Google.
Its worse that that Tom, google actually supplies information to the Chinesse government on those who search for illegal sites like the BBC. Thats collusion.
Really?! Wow I didn't know that! Thanks for that ajp. How'd you know that?
It was in the news a while back. I think msn and yahoo do it aswell but as google's slogan is do no evil it seemed very hypocritical so made the news.
I forget exactly, but I don't think that they actually tell the government who's doing what. They definitely sensor and alter search results, and may hand over general information on what kinds of things are being searched for, but I think that's about it.