New Mandala

New perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia

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Entries Tagged as 'Online Issues'

A story with big implications

November 2nd, 2009 by Nicholas Farrelly · 15 Comments

Sitting here at the National Thai Studies Centre’s 2009 Thai Update I am struck by the news that two Thai citizens have been charged with ”feeding untrue information through a computer system which undermined the security of the nation”.  They have been accused of spreading rumours about the king’s health.  Apparently a translation of a Bloomberg article is [...]

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Tags: Online Issues · Thailand · lese majeste

Inappropriate website

October 30th, 2009 by Nicholas Farrelly · 5 Comments

If you go the website of Thailand’s Ministry of Information and Communication Technology there is a page where you can alert the authorities to the existence of any “inappropriate website”. 

The “types of complaint” to choose from  includes lèse majesté, obscenity, gambling, narcotics, etc.
Do any New Mandala readers have experience with the site?  Has anybody made [...]

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Tags: Abhisit · Online Issues · Thailand

Media and images in Thailand

October 29th, 2009 by Jim Taylor, Guest Contributor · 8 Comments

“Truth becomes fiction when the fiction’s true; real becomes not-real when the unreal’s real”
- The story of the stone, or the dream of the red chamber, Xueqin 1973, p.55)
The award winning NGO “Reporters Without Borders” (RWB) noted that Thailand has slipped to 130th this year from 124th the previous year in terms of comparative [...]

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Tags: Media · Online Issues · Thailand

Political twittering from Bangkok

October 26th, 2009 by Nicholas Farrelly · Add a Comment

Patchara [Kerdsiri, a 32 year old Web program developer] said Twitter opens the chance for users to be close to famous people. Fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, or @thaksinlive, veteran politician Chaturon Chaisang, or @chaturon, and Patee Sarasin, or @patee122, have replied to his “tweets”.
- Extracted from Kornchanok Raksaseri, “Calling Twitterers…to Thai coffeeshop”, Asia [...]

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Tags: Online Issues · Thailand · Thaksin

asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala

October 26th, 2009 by Nicholas Farrelly · Add a Comment

If everything goes according to plan New Mandala will transfer to a new address (asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala) on Wednesday, 28 October 2009. We have enjoyed almost three and a half years on our current site but organisational changes here at the ANU mean that this is a good time to make a new home.  There will be [...]

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Tags: Asian Studies · Online Issues

A classic popular culture blog

October 23rd, 2009 by Andrew Walker · 1 Comment

Still Life in Moving Vehicles is a wonderful blog on a very distinctive aspect of urban Thai culture. Enjoy!

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Tags: Online Issues · Thailand

Panrit Daoruang free

September 25th, 2009 by Nicholas Farrelly · 5 Comments

Those who hang around the Thailand Internet scene will probably be aware that for the past few years young Thai webmaster extraordinaire Panrit (formerly Nattawud) Daoruang has been locked up in Samut Prakan Central Prison.  Known by the nickname “Gor”, he was recently released.  One of the websites run by his long-time teacher, mentor and [...]

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Tags: Asian Studies · Online Issues · Thailand

Articles on web censorship in Asia

September 18th, 2009 by Nicholas Farrelly · Add a Comment

Web censorship regimes in mainland Southeast Asia are a regular topic of discussion here at New Mandala. Of course, anybody who spends time in Burma gets used to the government’s relatively consistent effort to block potentially subversive online material.  And, jokes aside, since the coup of 2006 Thailand has also beefed up resources to clamp [...]

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Tags: Asian Studies · Burma · China · Malaysia · Online Issues · Thailand · Trans-Border Issues · Vietnam

Thai politics and lese majeste online

September 6th, 2009 by Nicholas Farrelly · Add a Comment

While people may and should debate on the merit of the lese majeste law, outright verbal attacks online, especially those that are unsubstantiated have led to a feeling that the online virtual debating community is degenerating into verbal abuse and uncompromising dogmatism, both from the political left and right. These reckless and vicious contributors end [...]

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Tags: Media · Online Issues · Thailand · lese majeste

The spice of South Asia Masala

September 4th, 2009 by Nicholas Farrelly · Add a Comment

Most people who arrive at New Mandala are looking for something meaty about the countries of mainland Southeast Asia.
A quick glance at the search engine terms that consistently bring readers to rspas.anu.edu.au/rmap/newmandala gives a strong indication of reader interests.  Some of the phrases that rank particularly highly are the predictable ones: “sufficiency economy”, “burma cyclone”, [...]

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Tags: Asian Studies · Bangladesh · Bhutan · India · Online Issues