How Thai authorities use online doxxing to suppress dissent

> 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.

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.

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.

Free speech is not an American thing, it's a human thing. The fact that some governments do not recognize it does not make it any less of a right.

Rights are not given to you by your government, your rights are your rights by virtue of you being a human being.

Thinking freedom of speech is even remotely ethnocentric just proves that something is broken in that person's head that they don't even understand the basic concept.

>Free speech is not an American thing, it's a human thing.

Thank you for providing such a clear example of the mentality that Rayiner refers to.

To be clear I'm not talking about the First Amendment, I'm talking about free speech.

Don't you think a person should be able to say what they want, when they want, without fear of persecution from their government?