King of Thailand threatens to sue Facebook over a video of him in a small yellow crop top
Not long before he became King of Thailand, Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn was on a trip to Munich, Germany. He mooched about a shopping centre with a woman. That’s him in the natty yellow crop top, showing off the tattoos on his tum-tum and back.
Thanks to Somsak Jeamteerasakul, “a prominent Thai historian and critic of the monarchy who lives in France”, the video of Maha’s shopping trip has appeared on Facebook, as The New York Times reports. Apparently, the King has had the video blocked in Thailand. He’s also told Facebook to remove the video or else.
Under the country’s lese-majeste laws, people can be jailed for 15 years for insulting monarchy. But is it an insult merely to show the monarch out and about? And won’t all the cool kids be dressed like this next year?
The video has been blocked in Thailand but was still available outside the country on Tuesday.
Facebook, which opened an office in Thailand in 2015, declined to answer questions about its operations in the country or the pages that the government wants to remove. A spokeswoman, Clare Wareing, said only that the company’s policy was to comply with requests by governments to restrict access to content that officials believed violated local laws.
“When we receive such a request, we review it to determine if it puts us on notice of unlawful content,” Ms. Wareing said in an emailed statement. “If we determine that it does, then we make it unavailable in the relevant country or territory and notify people who try to access it why it is restricted.”
Spotter: The New York Times.
Posted: 17th, May 2017 | In: Royal Family, Strange But True Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
