Life without YouTube

While Thailand claims to be a beacon of free speech and democracy (cough, military coup, cough) in South East Asia, it’s all just really propaganda. The military has such a tight grip on everything that goes on in the country. The newspapers and TV stations are all pro government. You can’t even purchase a VHF transmitter in Thailand without authorization. The level of censorship that goes on is astounding.

Along with the censorship of public broadcasting, the government has made the move to censor the new media. Thousands of websites cannot be viewed from within the country. Among these is, the popular video-sharing site, Youtube.com. Now, unless you have been living under a rock for the past year or so, you will obviously have heard about YouTube. YouTube allows visitors to post videos, which are easily viewed by anyone around the world. Unfortunately, a few of the videos posted have shown Thailand in a bad light.

The Thai governments reaction to these videos was to block the site completely. How this is going to correct the problem is beyond me. I realize that they are trying to protect Thailand’s image, but the rest of the world can still view those videos. If they really wanted to protect the countries image, they should have called on all Thai citizens to post videos, which show Thailand in a favorable light.

Until the Thai government realizes that they are simply cutting off their nose to spite their face, most people will have to look for alternatives to YouTube. A few that I have come across are:

• www.dailymotion.com
• video.google.com
• www.blip.tv
• www.veoh.com
• stage6.divx.com
• video.yahoo.com
• www.ifilm.com

This list is by no means complete and I would love your comments and suggestions. I will keep it updated as I hear about more alternatives.

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