Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/12/21/thailands-military-appointed.html
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guess we’ll see how the Net routes around this damage. I’m sure the Drumpf team is already taking notes on the law.
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I suspect that the major trouble won’t be for the internet; but for the hapless people trying to use it in Thailand.
Even when true, the whole “The internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it” line kind of involves ‘routing around’ the area with the censorship. Unless Thailand has an atypically strong grip on the world fiber network and a desire to piss off major backbone operators; I’m sure those of us outside the country will be able to carry on without incident.
Inside, not so much.
(edit: the one area where internal censorship policies do tend to spread dangerously, even if architecturally they should be route-around-able, is if the country doing the censoring is seen as a particularly attractive market. Lookin’ at you, China; and the various pusillanimous western tech companies who have lined up eagerly to play ball in the hopes of getting a slice of that sweet, sweet, customer base. With countries of limited economic interest, just letting them rot in their isolated dystopia may be a moral issue; but technologically the rest of the internet can just shrug and carry on with its day. When access to a given market is valuable enough that companies can be…induced to cooperate…in exchange for continued access; you have a much larger problem.)
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I anticipate the new economy will ultimately shake out into countries that encourage innovation, and those that discourage it. Looks like the US and most of the EU will be in the second-class seating this time, and it’s not the first time. Who’s ahead right now? Finland?
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I really hope that they don’t try to actually enforce this in any way but a selective one. Doing so could bankrupt a country like Thailand.
I don’t think this regime understands that: all they see is more necks to plant their jackboots on.
Insults to President Cheeto may not be taken lightly.
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That’s the point of laws like this. It’s Authoritarianism 101. You pass very broad laws that carry harsh penalties, then you enforce them selectively. This keeps the rabble guessing your intentions, and afraid to stick out their noses.
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Um, this is South East Asia, the passing of a law and the enforcement of it are two very different things. Some monarchs in SEA used to be able to murder people on the street without prosecution (and did so) until just recently if I’m not mistaken. There is a huge divide between law and enforcement. In all likelihood this is simply an effort to pass the most draconian law possible so that the govt can selectively imprison anti-state agents at will in the future. They are casting a large net to allow unlimited judicial reach in the future. I would be surprised if this law would be enforced in even 0.01% of the violations that will occur. It is likely just a hedge against very specific anti-state actors in the future. That would be my bet. Still a blank check for the military coup. Could be proved wrong.
Totally agree with bheerssen
Just an exercise to show their sister city in North Carolina how to do legal reform and shorten legislation cycle times!
Just lese’in.
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