Facebook/Twitter Banned In Thailand For Election 177
societyofrobots writes "In the run up to the July 3rd election in Thailand, use of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media are banned for campaigning and other election related purposes. Offenders face a maximum six months in prison and a 10,000 baht ($330) fine. The ban includes sending short telephone texts and forwarding emails. 'There will be a unit of more than 100 officers to monitor this,' said police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri of the social media ban. 'If we can track the origin of (an online message) right away, we will block the site and make an arrest. But if the sites are registered overseas and we can't check the origin, we'll first block it and ask the IP (Internet Protocol) providers for further investigation,' Prawut said."
Only banned during last hours before polls (Score:5, Informative)
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It is still censorship and a pretty stupid thing to censor at that.
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I don't really see how censoring politicians could ever be a bad thing? Most of the time when politicians speak I get an overwhelming urge to punch them in the face until they shut up! (Senator Conroy I'm looking at you!)
Seriously though I think this measure was designed by the relatively less corrupt current government to prevent the significantly corrupt former government from using it's ill gotten billions to buy it's way back into office by sending out propaganda to the poorly educated rural population.
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In Soviet Australia, Senator Conroy censors you !
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Here in .au it's exactly the same. In the last week (might be days?) before an election the parties are no longer allowed to advertise or campaign. Censoring a political party I see no issue with, as long as all parties are under the same restrictions.
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Here in .au it's exactly the same. In the last week (might be days?) before an election the parties are no longer allowed to advertise or campaign. Censoring a political party I see no issue with, as long as all parties are under the same restrictions.
It's the same in the UK, all TV stations show on the day before a general election is news that there is an election tomorrow, they don't do party political broadcasts or election-related discussion until the polls close.
Re:Only banned during last hours before polls (Score:5, Informative)
The law is to prevent candidates from claiming their opponent is a pedofile just as the voting starts, as in this case the opponent would have no time to respond to such allegations even if they can be easily proven false.
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If everyone agrees that spreading scurrilous rumors prior to a vote is self-outing as the loser, then there is a negative feedback loop, to minimize the behavior.
Governments run open loop; law begets law begets law. Society arrives at results opposite to the original intent. All lose.
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If everyone agrees...
Yeah good luck with that.
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Better still would be to enforce the ban socially.
In an ideal world, yes. However, despite what Slashdotters tend to believe, politicians (at least the successful ones) are smarted than most people. You must have noticed that news like "Candidate A did something very bad" are must more publicized that "Candidate A isn't all that bad, Candidate B made that up".
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Case and point: Fill in the blank ads
"$candidate_foo claims to do things "for the people" but did you know that he voted for $b
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http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/case+in+point [thefreedictionary.com]
Re:Only banned during last hours before polls (Score:4, Insightful)
It would constitute censorship under very limited circumstances. It would constitute censorship if new information was discovered in the final hours of the election, and it was prevented from inadvertently reaching the voter due to the blackout.
But the reality is that new information rarely pops up in those final hours. Because of that, most of the campaigning done would have more to do with manipulating the political process (e.g. presenting misinformation that the other parties cannot respond to). That sort of situation is far more dangerous to democracy than something that a few people could interpret as censorship because they see the world in black-and-white terms.
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this magically assumes that last minute campaigns are somehow different if from twitter/facebook versus doing them in public. Won't people do these last minute campaigning anyway?
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The article was quite clear that they were expecting a blackout of social media website. That means that it extends beyond Facebook and Twitter. It even includes forwarding emails and SMS. In other words, they're talking about technologies that have an immediacy and reach comparable to television and radio. It is quite different from a lot of last minute campaigning that could be done. If there are regulations regarding last minute campaigning using television and radio, it is extremely different all o
Re:Only banned during last hours before polls (Score:5, Informative)
All last minute campaigning is illegal. Here is the relevant section from Thailand's Electoral law http://www.elections-lebanon.org/elections/docs_6_G_8_1_14.aspx [elections-lebanon.org] [elections-lebanon.org]
"Section 48. No person shall make an election campaign by any means, whether it may be favorable or disfavorable to any candidate or political party, from 6:00 pm of the day before the election day to the end of the election day."
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They don't campaign in public anyway because it is against the law. It is a cooling off period for all campaigning. Here is the relevant section from Thailand's Electoral law http://www.elections-lebanon.org/elections/docs_6_G_8_1_14.aspx [elections-lebanon.org]
"Section 48. No person shall make an election campaign by any means, whether it may be favorable or disfavorable to any candidate or political party, from 6:00 pm of the day before the election day to the end of the election day."
This ban on campaigning is nothing new. All
Re:Only banned during last hours before polls (Score:4)
It is still censorship and a pretty stupid thing to censor at that.
In many countries election related 'advertising' (or campaigning) is prohibited for 24 hours before election starts.
No, it's not censorship.
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If it would be some law that is forced on people when majority of them object it, you would have a say. But when majority of people want such law to exist, well, it's their country their rules. Most Thai people really do love their king.
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First of all, bullshit. Second of all, freedom of speech is necessary for a democracy whether the people want it or not.
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That law exists because Thai people want it to exist.
No, you only believe that to be true because the law essentially prohibits reporting on the opposite. Saying that it takes a law to prevent badmouthing the king is badmouthing the king and thus illegal, so they legally can't say it in the media.
Most Thai people really do love their king.
[citation needed] — there's no particular reason to believe that people aren't worried about being turned in for not loving their king.
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Don't mix him in with the military junta that actually hold power here. But about this election were talking now, the opposition (red shirts) won. Even their old ex-prime minister admitted it and hoped the power transition goes smoothly. People got what they wanted.
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It is still censorship and a pretty stupid thing to censor at that.
In many countries election related 'advertising' (or campaigning) is prohibited for 24 hours before election starts.
No, it's not censorship.
Yes it is. It's '24 hours of censorship before the election starts'. Read your own post.
No, censorship carries the meaning that it is done by the government against the people's wishes. Most people seem to agree that it is a good idea to prevent damaging and scurrilous revelations just before an election.
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This blackout is to allow people to think who they are voting for, of course if you had of complained that this is pointless because the election is drawn up upon socio economic lines with the poor (majority of Thai's) being supported by the corrupt Pleu Thai party and the rich Thais being supported by the corrupt Democrat party that would be justified. Or if you compla
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It is still censorship and a pretty stupid thing to censor at that.
Lot's of countries have similar laws. The UK for example prohibits people making statements while polls are open about the way the vote is going based on exit polls or speculation that could reasonably be interpreted as such. And of making false statements of fact about a candidate. Doing so could land you in prison for 6 months or a £5000 fine. And it's not intended as censorship but to stop people rigging polls, e.g. by passing false comments which could have an adverse affect on voters. And yes twe
Its the rules, not censorship (Score:3)
Political parties are not allows to campaign on the last day preceding the elections in many countries. They have just extended the ban to online mediums.
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Canada has a ban on posting poll results and stats to social media sites during the election as well.
It's not censorship -- it's an attempt to prevent people who vote later in the day from basing their votes on the results so far in other jurisdictions, which would probably sway the vote rather seriously if that information was made public before polls closed.
Personally I think every country should have a similar rule in place, and if people can't abide by it, disable social media sites for the duratio
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Personally I think every country should have a similar rule in place, and if people can't abide by it, disable social media sites for the duration of polling.
That will never happen in the U.S.A. The constitution specifically prohibits it.
LK
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Personally I think every country should have a similar rule in place, and if people can't abide by it, disable social media sites for the duration of polling.
That will never happen in the U.S.A. The constitution specifically prohibits it.
LK
So change your constitition, it's just a collection of two hundred year old words, not the fucking Ten Commandments.
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They're all wealthy. There's not a single person running in the election that isn't rich.
The supporters are rural and poor however the Shinawatra family that represents them in the election were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. They own billions including one of the largest telecommunication companies (AIS). To pretend that they have no means of providing a proper election campaign is ridiculous to say the least.
They've already won the election with a huge campaign which cost millions, it's up to th
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Same in Canada, although in our case it's so that results on the east coast aren't transmitted to the west coast, where they're still voting, until AFTER the election is actually over.
While I don't like it all that much, it's really not that onerous.
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So, since it's only a little bit of government censorship, it's OK? How much until it's not OK anymore?
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That's up for us to decide. Just like a little air conditioning is ok, or a little dessert, or a little alcohol.
Believe it or not, humans don't live in a world of absolutes, there are things that are acceptable in moderation.
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That's up for us to decide. Just like a little air conditioning is ok, or a little dessert, or a little alcohol.
Believe it or not, humans don't live in a world of absolutes, there are things that are acceptable in moderation.
Not for the libertarian slashtards. If you so much as criticise someone when they spout vile fascist nonsense, you're denyin them the right to free speech and are therefore a fascist. Or something.
Re:Only banned during last hours before polls (Score:5, Insightful)
So, since it's only a little bit of government censorship, it's OK?
Well, yes. More generally, it's a little bit of censorship that is very limited both in time and in scope, and which has a well-defined goal that the society considers important (fair elections).
Considering that, as far as censorship goes, this is far less significant than, say, criminalizing "incitement to riot", Americans should be familiar with the overall idea.
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Which movie were you picturing in your head during that obvious karma bait?
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A lot of news organizations do exit polling, which until recent years has often been remarkably accurate. In the last couple of presidential elections, the accuracy has dropped a bit because fewer people are willing to respond to the exit pollers or they are deliberately giving wrong answers.
Media organizations are often requested by the government to hold onto exit polls for individual states until polls close, something they usually do. The major news organizations screwed up in 2000 when they apparentl
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How does one "cheat" elections using Twitter or Facebook? Could you elaborate?
You mean the military junta and royalty-approved stooges or enemies of a renegade billionaire would be put at a further disadvantage yet?
Isn't "campaigning" what politicians do (many of them sadly even stopping at campaigning altogether)?
Aren't you a bit fuzzy on that whole election idea thing?
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People (you're familiar with them?) are essentially lazy and reactionary. Get a good whispering campaign going that Sock Puppet X is already heading for a landslide victory, and people either won't bother turning out to vote for them, or will vote for Sock Puppet Y just out of contrariness.
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Only of course the same will happen if the "whispering campaign" happens 2 days before, 5 days before etc. What then? Ban on all media appearances and all political communications 2 months before elections? Where does this end?
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No. 2 days before, people can only say that they think X will win. Two hours before the polls close, they can say that can say that according to ballots already counted, or according to exit polls, X ALREADY HAS won. Completely different thing.
And this is not a theoretical risk. Follow political news and you see this type of electoral fraud happening fairly often.
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No it isn't. In both cases it is mere conjecture. Since "people" do not get to count the votes.
Exit polls are wrong all the time too.
As I keep explaining, the true purpose of the law is to give the incumbents, or whomever controls the process, a stick with which to
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Only of course the same will happen if the "whispering campaign" happens 2 days before, 5 days before etc. What then? Ban on all media appearances and all political communications 2 months before elections? Where does this end?
Ah yes, a brilliant slippery slope argument. Obviously, if you have any interference whatsoever in the absolute freedom to publish anything at any time, you can only end up with an Orwellian nightmare with no freedom at all. All the countries that have anything like this are as oppressive as North Korea. In the UK, we suffer under the horrible evil of not being able to hear politicians lie about each other during election day, it's barely credible that such tyranny can exist.
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How does one "cheat" elections using Twitter or Facebook? Could you elaborate?
Easily. Just tweet that your opponent came in to vote reeking of drink or was charged with touching a minor or some other slur. Lots of countries put specific regulation around an election to stop this kind of shit and remedies for when it does happen.
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And this will not work if you use anonymous posters put up at night by masked provocateurs on every street corner or if you broadcast this from a foreign radio station across the border because?
And the effect will be different if you do it at 11:59pm of the day before the ban how exactly?
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And this will not work if you use anonymous posters put up at night by masked provocateurs on every street corner or if you broadcast this from a foreign radio station across the border because? And the effect will be different if you do it at 11:59pm of the day before the ban how exactly?
Well tell you what go read the UK's Representation of the People Act and see how these offences would be dealt with. I expect a judge would reasonably consider the time that people first receive & read the message than the actual time it was posted.
All of which countries have highly ... err ... colorful history surrounding elections, such as missing ballot boxes and bodies of candidates found in the river.
Face it, the only places that have such laws are banana "republics" and fake "democracies" run by military juntas and God-appointed "kings". Like, say, Thailand.
Nonsense. Every democracy in existence puts laws in place to protect and ensure that elections are free and fair. And in most countries that includes restrictions on what people may say or do while the vote is in progress or some period before. It's laughable
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Right. And then the judge, by use of powers arcane and divine, and upon consultation of tarot cards and Ouija board, will determine which of the many factions did that.
Oh, you mean this works only for a two "party" system?
Well then, a clever guy could run
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Right. And then the judge, by use of powers arcane and divine, and upon consultation of tarot cards and Ouija board, will determine which of the many factions did that.
No dummy, the police will and the cps will prosecute.
Except of course what you describe has nothing whatsoever to do with "fairness". The laws of this kind are meant to give advantage to the whomever is tightening his grip on power. They are positively Orwellian in that they do precisely the opposite of what they claim to. While everyone is effectively muzzled, the "protectors" get to "be sadly forced by the perfidy of the opposition" to "make a one time exception" to "refute" "outrageous claims" on the, usually national, TV. While the "upstart rabble" does not, of course.
Yes it's absolutely to do with fairness. Perhaps in some paranoid other reality you think it's a-ok for politicians to be standing outside polling stations, tweeting, leafleting on polling day telling people their opponent is a kiddie fiddler or some other scare tactic. Back in reality most modern democracies recognize that elections require extra legislation to ensure everything is as fair as possible.
Yes, right. Preferably 10 years before. Or is that too short? If not, why? An arbitrary ban is arbitrary. The "logic" applicable to a 1 day ban is exactly the same that applies to a 1 week ban, 1 month and so on.
Now you're just being stupid. Willfully stupid.
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How!? I keep asking this question and you keep replying "yea, they will!". Any broadcast from foreign soil is out of jurisdiction. By definition. Even more so if the idiotic law in question is not applicable in the country of origin. So unless they plan to invade, there is no way they can determine if the broadcast was by the party that is supposedly "set-up", in a false-flag operation, or by the actual opponents. None whatsoever.
And the Internet introd
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How!? I keep asking this question and you keep replying "yea, they will!". Any broadcast from foreign soil is out of jurisdiction. By definition. Even more so if the idiotic law in question is not applicable in the country of origin. So unless they plan to invade, there is no way they can determine if the broadcast was by the party that is supposedly "set-up", in a false-flag operation, or by the actual opponents. None whatsoever. And the Internet introduces a whole new level of impossibilities.
I haven't said "yes they will" in all circumstances. I apologise for making statements that any reasonable and sane person would have no trouble following. It appears that you think that since not all crime can be prosecuted (in this instance interference with an election) that laws should not exist to describe said crimes and their punishment. It's a bizarre and wilfully stupid assertion.
You keep using this word, "fair", and I don't think you have any clue what it means. Fair is when small parties, with tiny budgets, can run ads right before the election because their impact diminishes rapidly over time and when there is a 2 week "cooling period" it greatly advantages the few top "establishment" parties. So it is yet another reason in a myriad of why laws like that are unfair. Always. Fair is when speech of any non-establishment opponent is not muzzled during elections. Unfair is when laws are made to muzzle it in the name of "fairness" (to the establishment). Fair is when laws are not made to be used as a witch hunt tool when some false-flag operator releases "smears" against a major incumbent party candidate on the Internet and which then causes the opposition to be accused of breaking this "holly law".
I'm starting to see now. You're paranoid AND stupid. False flag operation... for fuck's sake. Embargoes around certain a
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And this will not work if you use anonymous posters put up at night by masked provocateurs on every street corner or if you broadcast this from a foreign radio station across the border because?
That's like saying there's no point in making bank robbery illegal because people can still burgle houses.
And the effect will be different if you do it at 11:59pm of the day before the ban how exactly?
Because the media can still fact check the claim and report during the campaigning ban.
All of which countries have highly ... err ... colorful history surrounding elections, such as missing ballot boxes and bodies of candidates found in the river.
I already gave you the UK when you asked for one counter-example. Actually AFAIK this is common practice in Europe, many countries of which, just like the UK, have far less corruption in elections than the US. (Whilst of course there are other European countries that have more election corruption than the US.)
Face it, the only places that have such laws are banana "republics" and fake "democracies" run by military juntas and God-appointed "kings". Like, say, Thailand.
Face it,
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No, its like saying there is no point to have Sharia law declare that all women have to wear burkas because they can escape to the West and wear skirts there...
See what I did here? Your "analogy" is as bullshit.
And since media is usually owned by one of the incumbents these days, or one of the moneyed challengers,
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And since media is usually owned by one of the incumbents these days, or one of the moneyed challengers, it can also "report facts" that the other guy happens to be accused of child molestation, 3 hours before the polls close.
And if that's a problem in practice rather than theory, then it may be time to look at the rules again. In the UK it isn't. Thankfully there's no Fox News equivalent here. Deal with your own broken political process.
Furthermore, it is a sure sign that any "democracy" or "republic" which enacts such laws which originate in the banana republics I mentioned) is in a steep decline and on its way to autocracy. See also under: UK, Australia etc
Having been proved wrong on your claim that it was only banana-republics that do this, you'r'e now trying to put the cart before the horse that say that any country that does this is thus heading towards a banana republic. Even though such rules are long standing.
You're living up to your usernam
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Except, as I keep pointing out, and which you keep studiously ignoring, these "rules" make no sense whatsoever in theory and practice both. You, nor any of the other posters here, provided a shred of evidence that these laws actually help democracy in any way, although you did engage in a lot o
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Having been proved wrong on your claim that it was only banana-republics that do this, you'r'e now trying to put the cart before the horse that say that any country that does this is thus heading towards a banana republic. Even though such rules are long standing.
Yup poor old IgnoramusMaximus has just demonstrated a live example of "no true Scotsman" logical fallacy. Apparently other democracies are "banana republics" because their definition of free and fair elections does not fit his own. They can't be true democracies, oh no.
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And Australia
Under Schedule 2 of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, which is administered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), election advertising in the electronic media is subject to a 'blackout' from midnight on the Wednesday before polling day to the end of polling on the Saturday. This three-day blackout effectively provides a "cooling off" period in the lead up to polling day, during which political parties, candidates and others are no longer able to purchase time on televis
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See my other reply. Laws like these are a sure sign of a decaying democracy.
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It is nowhere near "common" in established democracies. It is also highly dubious. There is no substantive difference if a "dirty secret" is released at 11:59pm on the day prior to the ban or 1 minute before the polls open or one minute before they close. In none of these cases there is a chance to reply since all banned "campaigning" also includes "replies". Of course "replies" of the friends of the ruling junta are usually "special" and thus "exempt".
Re:Only banned during last hours before polls (Score:4, Insightful)
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List any that are not a running joke when it comes to credibility of their vote counting process.
What logical reason?
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List any that are not a running joke when it comes to credibility of their vote counting process.
The UK.
What logical reason?
Because it's better to let the electorate have a free period to make up their mind on all the information they've received through the campaign period, rather than to have them voting based on an emotive last minute smear or dirty trick.
If the last minute smear or dirty trick comes just before the campaigning deadline, then the media still have time to fact check the claim, and report it. Factual reporting is not campaigning, and thus isn't subject to the election period campaigning ban.
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Thats why you get asked for your number by the watchers from the parties at the door - the numbers are fed back to the constituency office and checked against your list of supporters.
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Yes they certainly can and do do that. But they can't put out campaign messages on the day.
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actually you can campaign in the UK on election day - the parties will do whats referred to in polictical jargon as "knocking up" ie trying to make sure your supporters get out and vote and the parties do one last push for photo ops before the candidates go back to the constituancies. Thats why you get asked for your number by the watchers from the parties at the door - the numbers are fed back to the constituency office and checked against your list of supporters.
Try running a party political broadcast on TV during election day. Oh, wait, you can't. We have limitations on absolute free speech, in the furtherance of helping to keep elections as fair as possible. Shockingly, in the UK you can't even post a libellous personal attack on Twitter about a rival politician during an election without getting into trouble.
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Because it's better to let the electorate have a free period to make up their mind on all the information they've received through the campaign period,
[citation needed]
If something that will change my mind comes out at the last minute, then why should I not have a right to know about it? It's my responsibility to check facts before I vote.
Of course, that assumes an intelligent, educated electorate. And that is very inconvenient to the corrupt.
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If something that will change my mind comes out at the last minute, then why should I not have a right to know about it? It's my responsibility to check facts before I vote.
So it would be fine for rich political parties simply to carpet bomb abuse, innuendo and outright lies onto the public, even if they were all proved to be true after the election, when it was too late? You can't personally fact check every fucking media story.
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Says who?! "Reporting", out of mere "civic duty" and "concern for the public", that the other guy is a child-molester three hours before the polls close is merely "reporting facts", no?
Give it up. Any such laws are wholly arbitrary and intended to give more power to whomever happens to be in control of the election process at the moment, which in banana republics is usually the eternally "re-elected" (with 9
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How about Australia
Under Schedule 2 of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, which is administered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), election advertising in the electronic media is subject to a 'blackout' from midnight on the Wednesday before polling day to the end of polling on the Saturday. This three-day blackout effectively provides a "cooling off" period in the lead up to polling day, during which political parties, candidates and others are no longer able to purchase time on t
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Another banana republic who is also fond of Internet censorship and the like. See other Slashdot stories.
Note that these ever more pro-establishment laws (since it is them who do not need to advertise, only small parties and upstarts of all sorts) are appearing only recently (in this case 1992) as the democracies and their principles crumble around the world.
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You just lost whatever your argument was hands down, you utter twat.
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It is nowhere near "common" in established democracies. It is also highly dubious. There is no substantive difference if a "dirty secret" is released at 11:59pm on the day prior to the ban or 1 minute before the polls open or one minute before they close. In none of these cases there is a chance to reply since all banned "campaigning" also includes "replies". Of course "replies" of the friends of the ruling junta are usually "special" and thus "exempt".
Thus it is all bullshit instigated by people in shaky fake "democracies" (like Thailand) who are afraid that elections will "heat up" (i.e. the patsies ... err ... "voters" of the crook facing an imminent loss will be prompted to resort to violence at the polls).
Fuck you, countries like Canada, Australia and the UK have perfectly real "democracies" and limit news coverage during elections.
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It could also be a way to make sure the candidates and parties or their supporters don't do any real-time independent reporting or double-checking. After all, it's far easier to mess with the results of an election through the television networks and the government infrastructure if you're part of the government, than to try control what people are going to say to their family or their friends on Twitter or Facebook.
I can see exactly why things like this are done. (Score:3)
In the Scottish election in 2007, the nationals party were set in the polls for a landslide victory and on the morning the polls opened, virtually every national newspaper in Scotland had an enormous full-front page spread containing much misleading information. This enormously expensive smear campaign had a huge effect and though the nationals still crept into power, it was only by a narrow margin leaving them largely toothless for four years.
Here's an interesting article on cooling off periods for thos
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As fellow living in Thailand as well this is the first I heard about any such ban and have been using twitter and facebook everyday. Also, 100 officers to monitor the whole internet? Good luck with that.
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Thailand has a long history of repressive regime and it's hardly a working democracy.
True.
Yes, it's a repressive move
No, not really. This would only be true if it didn't apply to some of the candidates. As it is, it's not any different than similar laws on the books in most Western countries. The general idea is to ensure that election is fair, and one candidate doesn't attempt to "drown out" the others by his campaigning, if he has access to superior resources in that department.
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if this were true wouldn't all campaigning for the last 24 hours be banned instead of "hurr lets block facebook/twitter"? Sounds pretty specious to me.
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All campaigning for the last 24 hours -is- banned you ignorant twit.
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if this were true wouldn't all campaigning for the last 24 hours be banned instead of "hurr lets block facebook/twitter"? Sounds pretty specious to me.
They do,
/. is overlooking is the real potential for violence during the election.
This is to try to prevent vote buying before the election, not that it works, 100 to 500 Baht (US$3.50 to US$16 approx) is all it takes for a lot of Thailands poor to be convinced to vote one way or another.
The bigger issue that everyone on
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looks like Zironic has corrected my statement, so I suppose all campaigning is banned, but I have heard that almost every election season is violent. What is different now than every Thai election in that sense?
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looks like Zironic has corrected my statement, so I suppose all campaigning is banned, but I have heard that almost every election season is violent. What is different now than every Thai election in that sense?
A recent history of violence
Bangkok 2010 protests [wikipedia.org]
86 dead, over 2000 injured, large tracts of Bangkok's Silom district burned including Asia's largest shopping centre. There have also been ongoing protests although, not as large as the May 2010 protests but a few have made the news such as forcing the government to cancel an ASEAN summit due to protests.
The conflict between the Red shirts (Pleu Thai and Former Thai Rak Thai party) and the Yellow shirts (supporters of the current regime). The Reds have
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The bigger issue that everyone on /. is overlooking is the real potential for violence during the election.
That's because it's not a software or computer related issue, and therefore the drooling geeks who slaver at the thought of any obstruction to their precious online right to download child abuse pornography aren't interested.
outrageous! (Score:3, Informative)
that is outrageous! this would never happen in a civilized country ... like Canada.
oh wait.
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Elections Canada was widely criticized for this but at least they had a particular objection which was restricted to posting premature or false election results, rather then "campaigning", "inciting to vote" and the like, which is what the Thai elites are worried about.
In Canada this action was a direct consequence of a law intended to stop poll manipulation by mass media during the election. The idea itself is very controversial (i.e. the idea that people are influenced by such data and change their votes
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Well it seems between Elections Canada and various elections boards in the US, EC has the right idea. Anyone who's paid attention to the polls and the media spouting their favorite top floppy head on election night, for or against has a direct impact on the outcome.
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Except, of course, that any such censorship ideas are completely unworkable, not to mention inherently undemocratic.
The true solution is education of electorate but that would be rather inconvenient to far too many would-be "leaders". Censorship laws on the other hand are meant to empower establishment con-men and professional public opinion manipulators under the very pretense of "protecting fairness of the elections" from these same individuals. Truly Orwellian pieces of work they are.
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So wait. Attempting to stop groups from directly influencing an election especially media outlets is undemocratic? I dunno. Seems to me to be the opposite. As that small minority(20%), who swing are the ones who actually make or break the vote.
See I generally have a problem when a news outlet comes out a few hours before polls close and tries to influence an electoral outcome. To me that's undemocratic, and vote tampering.
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Except, which I keep pointing out, and which people keep ignoring, a) there is no way to practically stop people from "influencing" an election with information as information is the very currency of elections, b) banning certain forms of announcements only advantages those capable of others, c) if it was really about "fairness" the law, instead of censorship, would be concerned with providing
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The issue isn't Westerners changing their vote it is westerners not voting at all. Why vote if the outcome of the elections are already known? At least allow those of us on the west coast the illusion that we have a say in Ottawa. Publishing results in one province before the polls are closed in another is bad form.
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So the cure to failure of democracy - which has, let's face it, failed completely in most of the West by being successfully tamed and defanged by the oligarchs, mindless consumerism, breakdown of social trust and the like - is censorship?
"Fucking for virginity", that's what it is.
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Sorry but a restriction for a few hours for the greater good is not censorship it is common sense.
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What "common good"?! Explain. All I want from you and all the other posters to explain, using reason and logic, how censorship is supposed to serve this "common good". So far no-one has been able to do so. Instead I've heard "reasons" such as "they've made it a law so it must be something", "voters can't vote 'right' if given unauthorized - by the authorities - information", "voters are too stupid to vote unsu
we do the same thing in Australia (Score:4, Informative)
see here http://www.aec.gov.au/FAQs/election_advertising.htm#blackout [aec.gov.au]
"This three-day blackout effectively provides a "cooling off" period in the lead up to polling day, during which political parties, candidates and others are no longer able to purchase time on television and radio to broadcast political advertising"
This entire story and headline is slanted to portray what the thais are doing as chinese style censorship when it is nothing of the sort. Many western countries including australia do the exact same thing
The same as everywhere else (Score:2)
Pretty much all democratic countries have prohibited political advertising or campaigns during the voting event for some 24-72 hours.
It's only appropriate 'digital attitude' to note that this restriction doesn't apply only to radio and TV campaigns, but applies to everywhere, including Twitter and Facebook as well.
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Schedule 2 to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 places three key requirements on the broadcasters of political advertisements. Clauses 3, 3A and 4 of Schedule 2 require broadcasters to:
...
cease political advertisements in the three days before polling day (from midnight on the Wednesday before polling day to the close of the poll on polling day).
The Act in question [austlii.edu.au] Doesn't seem to include social media -- it has television and radio.
I'm no lawyer, but to be honest if any of Australia's laws were that current I would be shocked. I mean, we have a communications minister who thinks that you can filter bit torrent without killing it [nocleanfeed.com]
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Odds are they're not going to ask the overseas ISP, but rather ask their own ISP about who's been writing data to the site.
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How about we do this: anybody can say anything and then we leave it to adult voters to sort it out for themselves. Would that work? Or are voters in Thailand not adults?
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Nice try. It is not a question of being adults or not, but rather of human beings in general being susceptible to certain psychological tricks. Like the government of the moment launching a massive FUD campaign in public media just before voting commences. Or the same government publishing fabricated polls during the election itself with the aim of swaying undecided people. How would you have them handle the issue afterwards? "Ooops, sorry 'bout that"?
I don't believe telling all interested parties to shut u