YouTube has been completely banned from Thailand after its parent company Google, refused to remove a clip which insulted the Thai monarchy.
“We have blocked YouTube because it contains a video insulting to our king,” said Winai Yoosabai, head of the censorship unit at the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology in Thailand, according to the NYTimes.
The video showed the King of Thailand with his face painted as a clown and an image of his feet pasted over his head. This is actually a very insulting gesture in Thailand.
YouTube Backs down
Now that Thailand has gone as far to block access to YouTube, the video on YouTube has been removed. I assume this is because YouTube does not want the bad press as this story hits the news. By not removing it YouTube could appear to be condoning videos which insult a particular country
But now that Google has agreed to remove the video it opens up the whole censorship issue again. Thailand is in a strong position to make Google do what it wants if YouTube wants to get back into Thailand.
Google has a history of backing down
China
You may remember the issue of censorship in China where Google first refused to censor its search results at request of the Chinese government.
However, google later backed down and agreed to the Chinese government’s demand for censorship of search results joining the likes of Yahoo and MSN.
Turkey
A similar thing happened in Turkey where YouTube backed down and removed the offensive video and the ban in Turkey was lifted.
Brazil
Once again a similar story, people were repeatedly uploading an offensive video to YouTube which included footage of a Brazilian model having sex on the beach. The Brazilian government got angry and started carrying out a block on YouTube.
However, YouTube were constantly removing the video as soon as they were found. As a result the Brazilian government quickly decided to lift the ban.
Another blow to free speech
With YouTube and Google already backing down this Thailand drama is likely to end up as another blow for free speech. Expect the censorship to continue.
