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Imagine living in a country where this is your king: https://www.dw.com/en/thailands-king-living-in-luxury-quarantine-while-his-country-suffers/a-53303644 https

Imagine living in a country where this is your king: https://www.dw.com/en/thailands-king-living-in-luxury-quarantine-while-his-country-suffers/a-53303644 https://www.dw.com/en/thailands-king-living-in-luxury-quaran... Siphoning off your tax money AND you're not allowed to say anything about it. Ridiculous.

cute_boi 6y ago
And saying something against the king may end up to jail for 14 years. Ridiculous. And even companies like facebook are helping them to identify the person who spoke against them.
- gambiting 6y ago
  Well, companies have to abide by the rules of the country they operate in, hopefully we can both agree this is a good thing? I can then say that I wish FB didn't chose to be present in Thailand at all, but since they are there, they should comply with the laws.
  - pieter_mj 6y ago
    offtopic, absolutely! But Facebook/Whatsapp don't abide to the European GDPR.
    - gambiting 6y ago
      They don't? In what way? At least through a very quick google search it seems like they do? [0] https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/17/facebook-gdpr-changes/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/17/facebook-gdpr-changes/
      - pieter_mj 6y ago
        no they don't : European citizens have not sufficiently been informed of pii-data sharing between Whatsapp/facebook : https://www.politico.eu/article/whatsapp-privacy-fine-data-protection-europe-50-million/ https://www.politico.eu/article/whatsapp-privacy-fine-data-p...
ben_w 6y ago
One of the things about being a personal sovereign ruler is that you get to put your face on all the money — “render unto Ceaser” etc. (Social media TOS are not a direct analogy of this, but as the saying goes: history doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme)
speby 6y ago
The entire image of that King and the chair and being hauled around by people is just .... so over the top ridiculous.
gadders 6y ago
The Spectator in the UK published an article about him as well. It wasn't very positive as you may be able to guess from the URL: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-depraved-rule-of-thailands-caligula-king https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-depraved-rule-of-tha...
fiftyfifty 6y ago
The previous king (current king's father) was revered in Thailand and I think far fewer people had a reason to violate this law. Now that the son is king there's going to be a lot more problems with Thai citizens wanting to be openly critical of him. I married into a Thai family and we've had a lot of discussions about this exact issue, since long before the previous king passed. In my mind you can't have a free and open democracy when you still have these monarchs hanging around and especially when you aren't allowed to be openly critical of them. Thailand has an elected assembly and prime minister, but the king is still head of the military and both the previous king and current king use[d] their influence to stir things up as they saw fit. Thailand has technically been under a military dictatorship (with the king ultimately at the head) since 2014 which is why these lèse-majesté laws are much more frequently enforced now. In my opinion trying to maintain a monarchy (even as a symbolic figure) and democracy doesn't work, they've had 20 different constitutions in Thailand since 1932 and they've had the 4th most coups in the world in modern history. Currently Bangkok is in state of civil unrest with pro-democracy protestors forming the #MilkTeaAlliance with protestors in Hong Kong and Taiwan. We'll see if they are able to enact any real change in the country.

cute_boi 6y ago

And saying something against the king may end up to jail for 14 years. Ridiculous. And even companies like facebook are helping them to identify the person who spoke against them.

gambiting 6y ago
Well, companies have to abide by the rules of the country they operate in, hopefully we can both agree this is a good thing? I can then say that I wish FB didn't chose to be present in Thailand at all, but since they are there, they should comply with the laws.
- pieter_mj 6y ago
  offtopic, absolutely! But Facebook/Whatsapp don't abide to the European GDPR.
  - gambiting 6y ago
    They don't? In what way? At least through a very quick google search it seems like they do? [0] https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/17/facebook-gdpr-changes/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/17/facebook-gdpr-changes/
    - pieter_mj 6y ago
      no they don't : European citizens have not sufficiently been informed of pii-data sharing between Whatsapp/facebook : https://www.politico.eu/article/whatsapp-privacy-fine-data-protection-europe-50-million/ https://www.politico.eu/article/whatsapp-privacy-fine-data-p...

ben_w 6y ago

One of the things about being a personal sovereign ruler is that you get to put your face on all the money — “render unto Ceaser” etc. (Social media TOS are not a direct analogy of this, but as the saying goes: history doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme)

speby 6y ago

The entire image of that King and the chair and being hauled around by people is just .... so over the top ridiculous.

gadders 6y ago

The Spectator in the UK published an article about him as well. It wasn't very positive as you may be able to guess from the URL: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-depraved-rule-of-thailands-caligula-king https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-depraved-rule-of-tha...

fiftyfifty 6y ago

The previous king (current king's father) was revered in Thailand and I think far fewer people had a reason to violate this law. Now that the son is king there's going to be a lot more problems with Thai citizens wanting to be openly critical of him. I married into a Thai family and we've had a lot of discussions about this exact issue, since long before the previous king passed. In my mind you can't have a free and open democracy when you still have these monarchs hanging around and especially when you aren't allowed to be openly critical of them. Thailand has an elected assembly and prime minister, but the king is still head of the military and both the previous king and current king use[d] their influence to stir things up as they saw fit. Thailand has technically been under a military dictatorship (with the king ultimately at the head) since 2014 which is why these lèse-majesté laws are much more frequently enforced now. In my opinion trying to maintain a monarchy (even as a symbolic figure) and democracy doesn't work, they've had 20 different constitutions in Thailand since 1932 and they've had the 4th most coups in the world in modern history. Currently Bangkok is in state of civil unrest with pro-democracy protestors forming the #MilkTeaAlliance with protestors in Hong Kong and Taiwan. We'll see if they are able to enact any real change in the country.