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have you ever written a mean comment
about somebody here on YouTube or
somewhere else on the Internet if you
have the worst thing that's probably
ever happened to you is something like
the classic Navy SEAL copypasta written
back to you but for some other people
they've been sentenced to effectively
life in prison for doing the exact same
thing you see it really all just depends
on who the person is that you're making
fun of online for example if you're
gonna make fun of me down in the
comments of this YouTube video the worst
thing I can do to you is pin your
comment and try my hardest to make you
look like a clown but if you're gonna
make fun of the king of Thailand however
you can face the rest of your life in
prison
even if you don't live in Thailand and
here's how theoretically Thailand is a
constitutional monarchy like the United
Kingdom or Japan but unlike in those
countries the monarchy is not only super
super revered but it's also illegal to
criticize them the position of the time
monarch in the royal family is enshrined
in the Thai Constitution which at one
point states the king shall be enthroned
in a position revered worship and shall
not be violated no person shall expose
the King to any sort of accusation or
action so not only do we have those
scary words to work with but section 112
of the Thai Criminal Code also makes
insulting or otherwise degrading the
king or a member of the royal family a
severe criminal offense it states
verbatim whoever defames insults or
threatens the king the Queen the heir
apparent or the regent shall be punished
with imprisonment of three to 15 years
that punishment of three to fifteen
years however is for each insult that a
person gives to the King so if you were
to hypothetically post five comments on
a video such as this one that we're
insulting in some nature to the king of
Thailand's you would face five counts of
three to fifteen years in prison
each for a minimum sentence of 15 years
and a maximum of 75 years and it's not
just Thai citizens who can face such
penalties but
government has convicted foreigners
under the law as well who have traveled
to the country afterwards but who even
is the king of Thailand they are not
allowed to make fun o currently it's
this guy named Baha vajira longhorn who
ascended to the throne back in 2016
after the death of his father the anti
insult law applies to him his queen the
current heir apparent and debated Lee
every other member of the royal family
as well so that's a lot of potential
people that the law covers and it also
doesn't help that the law doesn't
exactly define what an actual insult is
it can be applied extremely broadly and
anybody is allowed to report anybody
else for committing an insults and any
report has to always be investigated by
the Thai police insults against the
monarchy are considered threats to
national security in Thailand so here's
a few juicy examples from recent history
in 2007 a man from Switzerland got
aggressively drunk in Chiangmai and
began spray painting over some portraits
of the king for some laughs he was
arrested and sentenced to 10 years in
prison although he only served a month
before being pardoned and released in
2008 an Australian man wrote a book
about the various romantic scandals and
entanglements at the Thai royal court
the books sold exactly seven copies but
that didn't prevent the Thai police from
arresting him upon his arrival at the
airport in Bangkok during a trip to the
country he was sentenced to three years
in a Thai prison but was pardoned after
only a month and deported in 2009 a Thai
woman was arrested and sentenced to 15
years in prison after she delivered a
public speech that mentioned the ruling
class of the country in a way that was
deemed to be offensive in 2011 an
American man was sentenced to two and a
half years in jail under the law while
he was visiting Thailand for allegedly
writing articles online that defamed the
king and for posting a link on his blog
to a book that was banned in the country
he ended up serving seven months before
being pardoned in 2012 a Thai man was
denied bail on eight separate occasions
and sentenced to 20 years in prison
because of four text messages he sent
from his phone that were deemed
offensive to the king in Queen five
years in prison for
texts he sent in 2015 a 27 year old
factory where her in Thailand was
arrested under the law for supposedly
making sarcastic comments about the
king's dog on facebook which for
reference looks like this according to
the BBC the man had posted multiple
photos of the dog that appeared to mock
the king in an edition he was also
charged with posting the light button
next to a doctored photo of the monarch
he spent 90 days in prison for the
crimes before being released on bail and
faced a maximum penalty of 37 years in
prison for the Facebook posts his
current location and status of the case
has been unknown since 2018 however it
is also important to note that under the
law making fun of or insulting any
previous time on arc is also considered
a severe criminal offence for an example
of that in 2017 a man made a remark
while at a thai university forum that he
doubted the existence of an epic
elephant battle in the 16th century
between king norris wan of the thai
kingdom of ayothaya and the Crown Prince
of Burma this was considered insulting
to a previous time on arc even one who
had been dead for over 400 years and the
man was subject to prosecution by the
Thai authorities because of it the case
was eventually dropped however but that
hasn't prevented other ridiculous claims
from being made in 2018 a relatively
famous Thai YouTube personality got in
trouble under the law for describing a
dress worn by the time is universe
contestant as ugly unfortunately for her
the dress was designed by none other
than Princess ceará Vannevar Inari etana
the only daughter of the current king
vajira
this got her into trouble for saying an
insulting comment about the work of a
princess but others have gotten into far
worse trouble for even less in 2017 a 34
year old man was arrested and sentenced
to 70 years in Thai prison for simply
creating 10 Facebook posts that were
each deemed to be insulting to the Thai
royal family the Thai Court sentenced
him to seven years in prison for each
Facebook post which is the harshest
sentencing that anybody in the country
has so far ever received for insulting
them
Archy it was effectively a life sentence
but it was gracefully commuted in half
for him to only 35 years in prison
because he confessed to being guilty
part of the problem with this law is
that the media in Thailand rarely ever
report on it or cover active cases
because even simply doing that can
result in charges of insulting the
monarchy for yourself so I realized that
even by creating this video on YouTube I
Eve potentially opened up a can of worms
and gotten myself into some legal
trouble in Thailand that could
potentially restrict my ability to visit
the country in the future even though I
feel like I haven't been insulting or
degrading in this video at all and I've
simply only been reporting facts the
facts themselves can be considered
insulting however if you were to
hypothetically leave an insulting
comment below and you ever go to
Thailand afterwards you could
potentially face jail time there and if
you write multiple insulting comments
you could even end up facing the rest of
your life in prison in Thailand if you
ever visit afterwards and get caught
YouTube itself has even been blocked in
Thailand on multiple occasions for
videos exactly like this one and I
already know that this video is almost
certainly going to be immediately
blocked there you see Thailand and
YouTube worked out their differences a
long time ago so that rather than
blocking the entire website their
YouTube just agrees to block potentially
offensive or harmful videos in Thailand
for them seeing as how other videos
featuring far more minor content than
this one have been blocked under this
agreement in the past it's safe to say
that this one will be too Internet
censorship is not only a pervasive issue
in Thailand or even on YouTube but
across the entire world and across every
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and as always thank you for watching