September 26, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - ATN) - Irony and hypocrisy was abound today in Thailand. First, Yahoo released a "transparency report" indicating requests by governments around the world demanding information or take-downs of content. With the US accusing Thailand of being a draconian, undemocratic dictatorship, rife with censorship and abuse, one might suspect Thailand to be ranked near the top of Yahoo's list. And with the US being the self-proclaimed global leader in human rights, privacy, and free speech, it should be somewhere at the bottom.
Thailand's requests to Yahoo? Zero. The United States? 12,533.
Thailand's requests to Yahoo? Zero. The United States? 12,533.
The Bangkok Post would report in an article titled, "Thailand 'asked no Yahoo takedowns'," that:
The report said Thailand has not made a single request for information or for taking down a site or web page during the period covered, from Jan 1, 2013, to June 30 of this year.America turns out to be a global leader after all, only in just about the exact opposite of everything it claims to stand for.
The United States called on the California-based Internet veteran to disclose data from accounts of 12,533 users, compared with the 4,759 accounts targeted by second-place Taiwan, according to the report.
US Ambassador "Invited" to Bangkok Office US Government Pays For
Adding insult to injury, a Thai-based alleged "independent, non-profit" rights advocate, Prachatai, exclusively deferred to by the Western press in all matters regarding Thailand, received US Ambassador to Thailand Kristie Kenney who visited their offices and had what she called a "lively discussion."
Kenney's visit is ironic, because while she claims she was "invited" to the office, it is in fact the US government that funds this "independent" so-called rights advocate to the tune of millions of Thai Baht a year since its inception. Kenney and the government she represents for all intents and purposes own that office, keep the lights on, and the staff employed.
When accusations began to circulate in 2011 that Prachatai was not "independent" as it claims on its website, and in fact funded entirely by foreign cash, it initially denied them. After a campaign to pressure Prachatai into disclosing publicly its documented foreign funding it did so, but only once, and only on its English-language page. Its Thai readers to this day still have not been informed, nor has the little disclosure Prachatai made been updated since 2011.
For the US to condemn and endlessly berate Thailand over how it conducts its internal affairs is immense hypocrisy, when it tops the list on invasive demands for personal information about Internet users, demands for content take-downs, and for maintaining a web of subversive faux-right groups around the world to insidiously subvert targeted governments the US dislikes.
For the US to go as far as intervene through a series of US-funded proxies including not only faux-NGOs like Prachatai, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, but entire proxy governments like that headed by ousted dictator Thaksin Shinawatra, is further proof the US' overreaching, extraterritorial meddling, and the fact that it, not nations like Thailand undoing US subversion, are the true threats to freedom, privacy, stability, and prosperity.
