Major Porn Website crackdown in Thailand

Looks like Thailand is taking cues from the US by banning porn and arresting webmasters.

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BANGKOK: -- The government will launch a major crackdown on pornographic material, offensive cartoons and Internet websites that contain inappropriate material, the government spokesman said yesterday.

Surapong Suebwonglee said more than five million websites from around the world feature rape in their content, causing widespread alarm among relevant authorities.

“There are also games about rape,” he said after he raised his concerns at the Cabinet meeting yesterday.

He said Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is now planning to supervise the crackdown on pornography and has already demanded to see clear results from relevant authorities by December.

Surapong said the crackdown would target pornographic material, cartoons and websites. He believed technological systems must be in place to block pornographic websites operated overseas, while relevant officials would nail down and arrest all operators of the offending sites in Thailand.

“With sincere effort from all relevant parties, the severity of the problem should dramatically drop,” he said.

--The Nation 2005-10-19

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Seems like the government could much better spend their resources fighting real crime, corruption and helping poor people. Also a shame they are lumping legal adult websites with consensual sex along with rape sites. There is quite a difference between the two.

--- Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. So why isn't selling fucking legal?
George Carlin

I thought Thailand had been doing some really big crack downs lately anyway?

Didnt they just pass some weird law to do with internet cafes or am i thinking of somewhere else?

Regards,

Lee

Lee,

Yep, that was Thailand too. Before they were mostly going after on-line games, now they have widened it to copy China and go after all pornography.

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New ministerial regulation to control on-line games

BANGKOK: -- The cabinet has approved an Interior Ministry proposal on drafting a new ministerial regulation to control computer on-line games, aiming to solve problems caused by children’s addiction to the electronic games.

Government Spokesman Surapong Suebwonglee said after Tuesday's cabinet weekly meeting that Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-Ngam, as a law expert, has been assigned by the cabinet to supervise the drafting of the regulation, which is to provide strict and integrated measures in solving the on-line games-related problems.

"The measures include registration of Internet cafes or on-line game shops, as that applied to clinics and drugstores; otherwise they cannot provide services," he told journalists here.

Dr. Suraponng said that the proposed ministerial regulation would be used as a legal tool to control a wide range of computer materials in various forms, including video games, laser discs, digital radio discs, CD– ROMs, hard discs, and similar others that are easily accessible to children who tend to be addicted to.

Many studies suggest that playing much of video or on-line games causes adverse effects to children, especially on their physical, mental and emotional health.

For some cases, violence in the games can lead to children’s aggressive behaviors

The government spokesman said that Mr. Wissanu would soon call a meeting of
experts from agencies concerned, namely the Interior, Culture, and Information and Communication Technology Ministries to brainstorm in drafting the regulation and then submit it to the Office of the Council of State for a quick revision.

"It is believed that the new regulation will be an effective measure that can solve the kids’ addiction to on-line games. It’s a serious problem in our society now," he told journalists.

"Prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra told the cabinet that when he visited people in various areas he had heard lots of parents’ complaints about their kids' addiction to on-line games; so the prime minister instructed the Interior Ministry to find solutions to the problem’, said the government spokesman.

--TNA 2005-09-28

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