THAILAND: YouTube willing to help block offensive clips of Thai King

Video-sharing website agrees to remove insulting clip of King Bhumibol Adulyadej

Straits Times
Saturday, April 7, 2007

Bangkok --- Video-sharing website YouTube will help Thailand block access to clips that are offensive to its revered monarch, a Cabinet minister said yesterday.

The site had refused to remove a clip insulting King Bhumibol Adulyadej, which led the military-backed government to block all access to it on Thursday.

But following a telephone conversation with Google government liaison officer

Andrew McLaughlin, Communications Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom noted: "He said pulling out those clips would not be an effective way to stop the damage, since users could re-post them.

"He said a more effective way would be to block certain pages not to be seen in Thailand."

Mr Sitthichai said the ban on the site would be lifted in "a few days."

On Thursday, a 44-second video clip, which showed grainy pictures of the Thai King with crude graphics superimposed on his face, was removed from YouTube by its creator, 'paddidda', after the government ban on the site.

The video's most offensive image to Thais was the imposition of a woman's feet, the lowest part of the body, on his head.

Before the clip was removed, Mr Sitthichai accused YouTube of being heartless and culturally insensitive for refusing to do anything about it.

Meanwhile, two more clips mocking the world's longest-serving monarch appeared on YouTube yesterday.

One 42-second-long video posted by "thaifreespeech" showed pictures of King Bhumibol, regarded as semi-divine in largely Buddhist Thailand, with a monkey's face.

By yesterday evening, the clip had already been viewed 13,660 times and attracted more than 200 comments, most of them calling for its withdrawal from the site.

Date Posted: 4/7/2007