And Again, YouTube To Be Banned In Thailand

The story continues as the Google online video sharing service YouTube might be banned again in Thailand after some new clips insulting the authorities were published a few days ago. The Statesman informs that the new vids, entitled 'Crisis of Siam', offended Bangkok and the government is again analyzing the possibility to ban YouTube. In case you don't remember, YouTube was blocked in the entire country for about 5 months because similar clips offending the authorities were published on the page and the Google representatives refused to remove them as they were not infringing the guidelines.

"The more recently posted videos, titled Crisis of Siam, allege that the King's top adviser, former prime minister Prem Tinsulanonda, engineered last year's coup d'etat and, moreover, harbours visions of splitting the royal family so that he can be the de facto power in Thailand. While clearly melodramatic conspiratorial propaganda, the clips are of a serious tone and also quite long, running for a combined 16 minutes in two parts," The Statesman wrote in the article published today.

The videos posted on YouTube some months ago were insulting the country's king and even if the authorities contacted the parent company to remove them, the clips remained available. Because Google sustained they were not infringing the internal guidelines, Thailand took the decision to block the entire service in order to restrict the Thai consumers from accessing the insulting videos.

After a long period of unavailability, Google took the decision to fix the matter and to block Thai users from viewing the videos. Obviously, the ban was removed so YouTube re-became available. Now, YouTube might be banned again but there is no official statement from the Mountain View company which refused to remove the videos in the past. At this time, the videos are still available, most of them having thousands of views.