I saw it on twitter this morning and it raised a wry, slightly cynical smirk from me:
Censorship is real. Let us speak up & tell everyone that #Hive does exist!
Why cynical? Because it was a comment from someone who has never really been censored at all. And it was naive.
I have lived in Thailand full time for about 18 years now and experienced 2 military coups and a bloody uprising which saw 86 people shot and killed by "the black hand sniper" in one day on the streets of Bangkok. Who will ever forget 2010? I live with known censorship of news sites etc (some simply blocked here in Thailand) and now, again, we have another round of student protests and a so-called democratic uprising.
The last days have seen many arrests, we hear sirens 18 hours a day as archaic army vehicles are escorted off the army base 10 mins from our house into fast-moving traffic, and as police make a big show of escorting prisoners from the nearby provincial court down the highway 500 meters from our home to the Provincial Prison in Mae Taeng.
Under the current emergency decree, gathering in groups of 5 people, inciting people to protest or sharing protest information online carries a prison term of between 15 and 25 years. The current response to that?
Image Source: Coconuts Media Bangkok
If I thought street protests were effective, I wouldn't give a hoot and I'd be down in Bangkok, on the streets and blogging my heart out about it on #HIVE.
As I write that line, another police car shoots down the nearby highway and I'm vaguely aware of the sound of sirens drifting across the ricefields (the water magnifies the sound) at 8.06am on a Tuesday morning.
The reality is that the technoligy is only a tiny fragment of the censorship problem.
Yesterday, 4 popular Thai news sites were closed down. 4 Thai news agencies to be shut down by gov’t as protests explode: police
Last night, it was announced that Telegram was under fire. Government going after Telegram users and social media posts to quell dissent. Why? Because Twitter's censorship and the subsequent rush to sign up for Telegram to enable the sharing of pop-up protest locations around Bangkok suddenly has made encrypted messaging the next target and "thing" to be banned.
In the last days, I have reflected a LOT about all the other student uprisings that failed, and WATCHED how censorship really works.
I'm here to tell you that #HIVE is only step one of a complex censorship equation. And it will only ever stay step one on the steep ladder towards social and political freedom unless some other things are embraced, and changed:
1. The framework of law that allows and enables freedom of expression under any and all circumstances.
It is failing everywhere around the world rght now, as information (and disinformation) becomes a more powerful weapon of war than a nuclear device. Hiroshima never did as much harm as the fear mongering and disinformation we're seeing from the centrally controlled mainstream Covid narrative.
Last night in Thailand?
The government said it is looking to charge individuals with the violation of the Computer Crime Act of 2017 as well.
The ministry said that it has discovered 324,990 cases of protest leaders, politicians and social media users that have created and posted content between October 13 and October 18 that were deemed to be against the emergency decree’s order.
Of the more than 300,000 reported cases, about 245,000 are from Facebook, around 75,000 from Twitter, and around 4,000 cases on web boards.
Puttipong Punnakanta, the digital minister, said the ministry will concentrate on charging the creators of these contents Source
Also yesterday in Thailand:
DOCTOR FIRED FOR OPPOSING USE OF CHEMICAL AGENTS ON PROTESTERS
That the Head of the hospital who oh-so-publicly did the firing wasn't immediately arrested? It was a failure of Law, not the vehicle to communicate it.
In a country without social security of any kind, no pensions and no unemployment benefits and which is economically ravaged post Covid, the call for other doctors to resign in solidarity renders any who do far greater heroes in this democratic uprising than a student facing riot police.
So how do you address the framework of Law that enables and allows censorship to flourish? Before you do that, you have to take a BIG STEP BACK and realize that this is not a Thai problem.
If you look at global censorship across multiple issues on social media, you will understand that censorship also flourishes in countries with so-called strong democracies. Like the USA. After all, Facebook and Twitter are both US companies and are still merrily censoring away on issues like Covid19, Vitamin D3, cryptocurrency and cannabis without any effective challenge.
How did it come to this?
Fundamentally we, as sovereign agents of free will, have allowed and enabled others to act on our behalf and been too lazy, distracted or preoccupied to call them to account.
Democracy and rule of law start with your vote, which enables someone to act on your behalf. And over time they do things like create goverments, create laws, create prison systems and create rules. One seemingly innocuous block at a time. The failure started the FIRST time a minor elected local official didn't perform or deliver, and we said-did nothing.
We allow them to distract us with all kinds of intellectual candy, if you will. We watch demonstrations on youtube, twitter and facebook. We rant and vent on social media or at physical protests, where they are allowed. But we fail to do those two fundamental things that will create change: effectively oppose at the political level and offer a viable alternative that others will vote for.
How to you change the censorship culture?
We MUST present viable alternatives into the parliaments of all countries to enshrine the rights of Free Speech.
Where does that start? Elections. Ensuring they are free and fair. And perhaps more importantly, putting up more than two candidates to begin reducing polarization and start working towards compromise and solutions. And being willing to engage in debate and the development of alternatives.
I KNOW #HIVE is only just in its first teetering steps towards being a part of the Free Speech solution when we're only a few weeks out from a US election and I'm NOT seeing much content put here on Hive that would change electoral minds and is relevant/important enough to need the sanctitiy and protection of blockchain immutability.
This current student uprising in Thailand is likely to fail. Mostly because they have no new national leader with popular support waiting in the wings, and no game plan for the reform of the fundamentals of law and civl society.
It all makes me very sad. And determined.
I spoke with my Thai daughter, Miss 16, about what fundamentals are needed to change this censorship culture in Thailand, and we agreed on 3 things:
- education about civil society and conceptual thinking;
- law reform; and
- blockchain technology.
I'm incredibly grateful for #Hive as a platform for free speech, but oh-so-mindful that WE need to make personal adjustments to not be part of the censorship cutlure. And that means:
- not blocking or excluding opinions or people which upset or offend us;
- listening to off-beat, out of the box voices which differ from the mainstream narrative;
- being willing to hold others to account, even when that's unpopular or exhausting;
- being willing not just to protest that which we abhor or find destructive, but also to put in the days-months-years it takes to create and popularize viable alternatives.
If we don't have viable alternatives ready to implement, all the protest and demonstration in the world won't be effective and is easily interpreted, and dismissed, as unrest and empty complaint.
For me, right now, it's a debate I have to step back from in Thailand, whilst I quietly mother one of the new generation of Thai people who CAN and WILL be an agent of change. While there's a 25 year jail term for protesting or posting about that and my right to stay and mother my Thai child relies on government rubber stamps, it's an unwise move to blog about what I really think.
It pains me to take that stance, but it's important to understand why. Meanwhile I blog and post when the ISPs are running properly, I don't rant when googlemaps and facebook messenger are down (again), I try to ignore the military helicoptors and sirens, and I am mindful that we all have to collectively live with the consequences of the choices others have made for decades and centuries.
Me? I want to create a different future, and am unravelling my bit of this mess as gently as I can, and trying to build something different.
Grateful, even when I am censored. Thankful for the people who DO create viable alternatives, and that starts with being grateful for the leaders who created #Hive, even whilst acknowledging that it's just a beginning.
Cos all great journeys start with that first small step. #Hive.
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