Censoring twitter in Thailand -Rawda & Fatma :)


1) The article "Thailand backs Twitter censorship policy" talks about how the Thai prime minister vowed to protect the monarchy over the internet. As twitter earlier this year had announced that they would permit country-specific censorship of content that could violate local laws. This caused a debate worldwide over the freedom of speech. The Thai prime minister stated that the Thai government would soon be contacting Twitter to "discuss ways in which they can collaborate". The Thai government made an agreement that a tweet from Thailand could be blocked at the request of an individual, a company, or the government. And when a tweet is blocked, it will be invisible to other users in Thailand however users in other countries can still see it. 



2) our opinion on this issue is that Thai people should have the right to express their thoughts on twitter just like other people from other countries. However Thai people should keep in mind that they have limits and should not tweet or publicize something against their government or country on twitter. 


3) Yes, free speech is a human right because people should have the right to express their thoughts freely. The government and the people of the country should be the group that determines what information is promoted. And to prevent any minor problem in allowing the public to determine then the majorities' determination is what should be taken into consideration by the government. The role of the media is to send out a certain message or information to the public, depending on the nation, the certain agency might be granted the whole freedom to provide any information to the people, as some of them have limits. It is obvious and logical to pass information the way it was taken yet this is not what is happening in the media today. 


4) As mentioned in the article, in China, the state-run Global Times also endorsed in an article, "it is impossible to have boundless freedom, even on the internet and even in countries that make freedom their main selling point," it stated. Therefore, we can see that different countries have different goals and priorities. Some governments think that a person's freedom is the most important thing and that this right shouldn't be taken away from the people. However, other countries think that the protection of their government and leader is the most important thing and this leads them into taking actions such as censoring what the citizens of the country say.