Video website restricted after housing offensive film defacing Thai king
The Thai government has placed a ban on the video-uploading
website, YouTube after a request to remove a video was denied. The video depicted a hooligan defacing
a picture of 79 year old Thai king, Bhumibol Adulyadej.
The 44-second video contained scenes of a man spray painting the picture of the
king, followed by the perpetrator walking on the picture with his bare feet, according
to BBC News. The latter act is considered offensive because the Thais
believe that feet are dirty.
Minister of Communications, Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, commented, "It's a
serious case of lese majeste. We asked Google to remove it some days ago, but
they refused to."
YouTube's head of global communications, Julie Supan, responded, "We are disappointed
that YouTube has been blocked, and we are currently looking into the matter.
The internet is an international phenomenon and while technology can bring
great opportunity and access to information globally, it can also present new
and unique cultural challenges."
The profile of the video uploader has been tracked to the U.S.
and the Thai government has said they will lift the ban once the video is taken
off of the website.
Update 04/05/2007: Shortly after this story broke, YouTube's site claims the post was "removed by user."
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