Thailand bans Grand Theft Auto IV

[Jockey]

This website (HHAD) along with all other small websites will be closed down soon unless they pay to go on the new planned internet 2 which basically plans to close the internet as we know it down by 2012 and replace it with a corporate run internet that forces you to pay to view the content. Activists are trying to fight against this but no one seems to care! http://www.infowars.com/?p=3730

Talk about treating us like kids? This is total communication control. Absolute censorship of all dissenting voices on the internet. The internet is our last small window of opportunity for free speech for soon free speech on the internet will be impossible (unless approved by 'Big Brother'). Soon anyone wishing to protest against 'Big Brother' will be reduced to making illegal pamphlets. All 'subversive' websites will be closed down. Anyone sending unapproved literature will have their access removed. The internet will only reflect and echo information we receive from the likes of the BBC, CNN, FOX etc. and Rupert Murdoch news. Most of you won't believe this is going to happen even though the architects of Internet 2 are openly admitting it.

[The understudy]

Thank You very very much Jockery
for this very very important News The only thing that I know about the internet 2 was that it offers greater speed but that it severly restrictd our use of it. Sh***!!!
I will ask my friends and Contacts in the News and Journalist world to spread the word!
And I do it myself!!!

Your's the understudy!!!!

[Randy Cornhole]

Its a load of bunkum, it will never happen. They may try, but people will always figure a way around it or a diffrent method...

[STEVE G]

Bangkok Post:

Distributor hands back licences, GTA banned.

An eight-year-old boy admits he wants to be a thief, emulating an online game in which money can be easily made through assault and murder.

In the game, the more crime a character commits, the more money he makes, according to the Pathom 2 student at a well-known school in Muang district of Nakhon Ratchasima.

This, he said, is why he wants to become a professional thief.

He was referring to the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) video game franchise, blamed for triggering the fatal stabbing of taxi driver Kuan Phokang on Sunday by a 19-year-old student, Polwat Chinno, in Bangkok. Polwat was said to have been obsessed with the game.

‘‘A thief can eat whatever he likes, whenever he wants, just by killing a restaurant operator. It’s cool,’’ said the Nakhon Ratchasima student.

He said GTA is exciting because there are many criminal missions to complete.

‘‘Another game, Manhunt, is even more hardcore. A mafia figure kills his enemies by slipping plastic bags over their heads or decapitating them with swords,’’ he continued.

He frequently asked his mother for money to play games at an internet cafe. If she refused, he would steal from her.
But he insisted the amount of money he stole from his mother was negligible, about 20 baht at a time.

An internet cafe in Nakhon Ratchasima typically charges 15 baht for an hour of internet use. Owners of these cafes have kept a close eye on their young customers since Sunday’s tragedy.

The Culture Ministry’s Culture Watch Centre yesterday received a complaint that a young couple took their two children, aged about two and five, with them as they played online games at an internet cafe in Bangkok. The complainant was concerned that children at such impressionable ages should not be exposed to the gameshop environment.

Alarmed by the Sunday killing, New Era Interactive Media, which distributes GTA in Thailand, yesterday asked the Office of the National Culture Commission’s (ONCC) to revoke its licence for the distribution of all three current versions of GTA — Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City and San Andreas.

ONCC secretary-general Preecha Kanthiya said a person found playing, leasing out, selling or distributing GTA could be fined between 20,000 and 200,000 baht.

Meanwhile, the police Children, Juveniles and Women’s Division was checking the number of internet cafes which offer online games.

The division would compile the information and use it to carry out a joint inspection with the Culture Ministry, Education Ministry and Information and Communications Technology Ministry.

Division commander Pol Maj-Gen Wisoot Wanichboot also warned that internet shops must remove pornographic and violent online material or face having their licences revoked.

[Randy Cornhole]

‘‘A thief can eat whatever he likes, whenever he wants, just by killing a restaurant operator. It’s cool,’’

I like his thinking - I want a new coat. No problem i'll just kill the shop owner. What a novel concept...

[Jockey]

Thank You very very much Jockery
for this very very important News The only thing that I know about the internet 2 was that it offers greater speed but that it severly restrictd our use of it. Sh***!!!
I will ask my friends and Contacts in the News and Journalist world to spread the word!
And I do it myself!!!

Your's the understudy!!!!

Randy - you say it won't happen. Why do you think that?

Understudy - Yes its very important to know and by spreading the word to hopefully set up a protest movement it just might help to stop it, but the way things are going I don't hold out much hope.

Anyone who makes their living from a small website (property site, travel, information etc.) will need to pay a license to be allowed to be on the new Internet 2. The Internet 2 is really designed for big business to emulate the High Street stores. Subscribers to Internet 2 will have to pay to use it and we're not talking ISP we are talking content. If a subscriber wants to visit a site not on Internet 2 they will need to pay an extra charge. Most people won't bother so all the small independent sites will have hardly any traffic and will eventually close down as insignificant. Other sites the owners of Internet 2 don't want you to visit (dissenting voices) will have their access completely revoked by the new access servers. The news information barons will then have total control of TV, Newspapers and now the Internet. Great news for all you haters of conspiracy theorists.

The good news for all you freedom lovers is you will have more access to online DVDS and games like GTA.

[MrPlum]

This is a good topic. I have a 7yr old under my dubious protection. She wants to play the PSP and Online games as I'm sure all youngsters do. For me it was 'Asteroids', today it is more likely 'carve your mother into small pieces and watch the animated character say 'Don't f*ck with me, blue eyes' in life-like quality.

Parental Advisory:
Children under two weeks may need parental supervision.

My youngster can be easily addicted. I see it in her delight, her excitement and her constant 'can I play game'?, 'can I play game'?

How to create a balance that allows her to 'go outside and play!' and yet enjoy some of the good ones.

My rule is this. No games on schooldays. If you want to play, then play games where you don't kill people or young females aren't depicted as lap dancers. Her glib reply.... 'I'm not trying to kill them. They are trying to kill ME!'

I don't think anyone can seriously say children are not influenced. Grange Hill inspired bullying and badmouthing teachers, Eastenders created a nation speaking Estuary English. 'Warriors' had thugs clearing the stores of baseball bats and advertisers wouldn't spend a dime if the music and images didn't drive home a particular message.

I don't need a study to tell me what any thinking parent knows instinctively. For those who do.. this article answers a few questions.

http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf ... walsh.html

Whatever Thailand is doing, long may it continue. I don't see young thugs snarling 'Who you ferkin' lookin' at' before ripping out my spleen.

[MrPlum]

Its a load of bunkum, it will never happen. They may try, but people will always figure a way around it or a diffrent method...

Yep. I'm sure an army of dissenters will be copying every 'subversive' DVD, video clip, radio show, ready to keep the flame alive. When censorship gets so blatant, more people will react against the control and be motivated to action.

The only way to stop it is to prevent people downloading from torrents or exchanging files.

What's the worry? No need for anyone to do anything. A superhero will emerge to save us all. I've seen it on the telly.

[buksida]

This website (HHAD) along with all other small websites will be closed down soon unless they pay to go on the new planned internet 2 which basically plans to close the internet as we know it down by 2012 and replace it with a corporate run internet that forces you to pay to view the content. Activists are trying to fight against this but no one seems to care! http://www.infowars.com/?p=3730

Sounds like another big internet conspiracy theory, won't happen unless there is global cooperation, which there won't be as only the giant corporations in the west will benefit from it. Too many rogue states will want to do their own thing and while the US has the most control at the moment it doesn't have it all. Thousands of servers will move from the west to be setup elsewhere, there are already plenty of ways around government censors and as said above people will find a way around it. The internet is the ONLY place where free speech is allowed and people will not want to lose that.

Now

[buksida]

Whatever Thailand is doing, long may it continue. I don't see young thugs snarling 'Who you ferkin' lookin' at' before ripping out my spleen.

Maybe because you're not Thai and are living in a holiday resort. The youth violence in Thailand is just as bad as the west, ever been to a Thai disco and not seen a massive fight? Its just not reported here. Of course, they've all been playing Call Of Duty 4 before they take out the guns.

[BaaBaa.]

Whatever Thailand is doing, long may it continue. I don't see young thugs snarling 'Who you ferkin' lookin' at' before ripping out my spleen.

Maybe because you're not Thai and are living in a holiday resort. The youth violence in Thailand is just as bad as the west, ever been to a Thai disco and not seen a massive fight? Its just not reported here. Of course, they've all been playing Call Of Duty 4 before they take out the guns.

Definitely no violence in Thailand, that will be why my GF avoids partys in Isaan as much as she can because they generally end up with someone fighting.

Also some people on this forum are hugely relieved they are not been randomly attacked by kids on Motosai.
(Not me because im hard as nails after studying special moves on computer games)

[redzonerocker]

(Not me because im hard as nails after studying special moves on computer games)

you don't carry a flame thrower & an ak47 around with you as well do you??

[MrPlum]

Ok. Happy to concede. Just wondering though, isn't there a difference between the daytime casual street violence you find in the UK with gangs involved and they don't have any qualms about attacking grandma... and parties/discos here where liquor flows and its really just young men taking on each other?

[BaaBaa.]

(Not me because im hard as nails after studying special moves on computer games)

you don't carry a flame thrower & an ak47 around with you as well do you??

I dont need them.

[buksida]

Ok. Happy to concede. Just wondering though, isn't there a difference between the daytime casual street violence you find in the UK with gangs involved and they don't have any qualms about attacking grandma... and parties/discos here where liquor flows and its really just young men taking on each other?

Agree, I think the flavour of violence is different but I don't think either can be attributed to video games. The incident in Bangkok was tragic but I'd put it as a one off committed by a teenager that obviously wasn't all there to start with.