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How Thai authorities use online doxxing to suppress dissent

(citizenlab.ca)
207 points gnabgib | 4 comments | 20 Apr 25 23:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.628s | source
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nomilk ◴[21 Apr 25 04:58 UTC] No.43748605[source]▶
> The (pro democracy) protesters were met with severe repression, and in November 2020, Prime Minister Prayuth ordered authorities to bring back the enforcement of lèse-majesté, or Section 112 of the Criminal Code, which criminalizes “insulting the monarchy”. Thailand’s use of lèse-majesté has been both arbitrary and prolific; protesters can be arrested for as little as sharing social media posts that are ‘insulting to the monarchy’. Furthermore, the weaponization of lèse-majesté has devastating consequences: those convicted under Section 112 face three to 15 years in prison per count.
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colechristensen ◴[21 Apr 25 06:52 UTC] No.43749049[source]▶
Absurd and not at all surprising today. And large sections of many populations do not care because their ideology aligns with whoever is doing the abuse of basic freedoms.
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rayiner ◴[21 Apr 25 13:34 UTC] No.43751858[source]▶
I was born in Thailand--though to be clear, I am not Thai. Thais are not Westerners. They revere their king. Their "ideology" doesn't embrace western "freedoms" of speech and protest to begin with. So the implied accusation of hypocrisy in your comment is simply misplaced.

Westerners generally, and Americans specifically, don't realize how their constant harping on "basic freedoms" comes across as ethnocentric. My parents are American citizens, but they were raised in Bangladesh and they don't really believe in free speech or democracy. My dad always talks about free speech with implicit scare quotes, like he’s referring to an american custom.

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1. alephnerd ◴[21 Apr 25 14:13 UTC] No.43752238[source]▶
> Thais are not Westerners. They revere their king

They revere Bhumibol, not his philandering, mercurial, and ripped son Vajiralongkorn who is de facto in exile in Germany. Everything in Thailand is de facto run by the military junta and aligned oligarchs like the Chearavanont and Shinawatra families.

And the younger generation (Gen Z) doesn't have much affinity for Bhumibol either, because they grew up in the midst of a middle income trap - their lives are better than their neighbors in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, or Vietnam, but CoL and the employment market is hellish, oligarchy and relations matter so if you didn't attend the right schools you're screwed, and abuses of power like the RedBull Heir running over a cop and all the extravagance around the royal family and their extended retinue grew more unpopular.

Tbf, I assume your frame of reference was the 1990s, and until the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 Thailand went through a massive economic boom so satisfaction with Bhumibol was high. Bhumibol also at least tried to appear like he cared about normal Thai people.

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2. rayiner ◴[21 Apr 25 14:22 UTC] No.43752345[source]▶
My parents lived there in the 1980s and we visited regularly in the 1990s, so yes, our perception is anchored in what was generally an optimistic time for the country. It's been sad to see what's happened recently. Thais are incredible people and don't understand why they can't seem to keep a functioning civil government lately. Maybe middle income trap is the explanation.
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3. alephnerd ◴[21 Apr 25 14:34 UTC] No.43752474[source]▶
> Thais are incredible people and don't understand why they can't seem to keep a functioning civil government lately. Maybe middle income trap is the explanation

Imo, it's the other way around. Thailand wasn't able to build strong institutions as that would have meant devolving power from the Military, Monarchy, and Crony Capitalists. This meant that economic reforms that would have helped Thailand recover from 1997 were not enacted as they would have undermined a lot of well connected and powerful people.

South Korea was roughly comparable to Thailand in the 1990s (and one of my professors who worked on Korean democratization confirmed this back in the day), but the IMF and US forced Korea to enact harsh reforms that helped them recover by the 2000s and become a developed country.

Also, a number of Thai business families were ethnic Chinese with ancestry in Guangdong, so a number of those families like the Chearavanonts decided to invest in China (the first privately owned companies in China were all Chearavanont funded because they had familial relations with the post-Mao leadership in Guangdong) [0] instead of in domestic R&D, while Korean chaebols didn't have a similar option and preemptively began investing in R&D in the 1990s.

[0] - https://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/14/business/from-chickens-to...

4. fnordpiglet ◴[21 Apr 25 15:43 UTC] No.43753233[source]▶
I think GenZ still deeply reveres him but he was so old at that point that he had little day to day impact on their lives like he did the prior generations. Most Thai people of any generation would have given their life to him in a heartbeat. But as he disappeared from day to day politics as his health failed his best he could do was simply not abdicate and try to not die for as long as possible.

The son however - I’ve rarely seen his picture hung in homes or shops - just his father.

The truth though is Thailand has been run by big last name power as a structural thing. While Thai people generally embrace liberal humanism due to their Buddhist beliefs, the elite social structure still tries to hold onto the slavery based society of the past. The police are the primary fulcrum of their power, in a cross relationship with organized crime. The military waxes and wanes in its control, but it’s the police and dark powers that truly control Thailand.