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Thailand Finally Unblocks YouTube

Posted by Lance Powers

Yep I thought my AppleTV was going to be completely useless until just a few minutes ago when I noticed that CAT (Communication Authority of Thailand) finally removed the ban on YouTube. If you remember, the Kingdom officially banned the popular website way back in April, over a lewd and quite disrespectful video of HM the King. While the video was eventually removed by YouTube, citizens of Thailand still had their access to the website blocked. Well, some of them - I'll admit that I was never really blocked from YouTube, after building myself a handy SSH tunnel, but it was a real pain in the ass to be forced to do so.

So why the change of heart? Perhaps they were overwhelmed with complaints? Or maybe a rich politician's son was miffed about missing so many episodes of LonelyGirl15. Most likely it is an attempt to pander to voters in the upcoming *cough* democratic elections *cough*. All I can say is that, while the incident was truly unfortunate, it really says a lot about the country's love of the monarchy.

All that aside, whoever made this decision to remove the YouTube ban today - Thank-you, thank-you and kob khun krup!

Posted Aug 30, 2007 at 07:43 PM | Permalink |