Thai Government Asks YouTube To Block Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The Great Dictator’ Video
A video clip of
Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The Great Dictator’ has been blocked on YouTube at the behest
of the military-backed government of Thailand. ‘The Great Dictator’,
a Hollywood film by comedian Chaplin, parodied the rise of Nazi leader Adolf
Hitler in 1940. On June 11, 2017, the
Thai Academic Network of Civil Rights urged the
public to watch a YouTube clip of ‘The Great Dictator’ in which Chaplin exhorts
the people to take back power from the dictator.
Thailand’s army grabbed power in 2014 but it vowed to
restore civilian rule once political and electoral reforms have been
implemented. The constitution passed in 2016 was intended to pave the way
for holding elections, but critics argue that it has reinforced military
rule within the country’s bureaucracy. Internet users
reported on June 24 that the video clip with Thai subtitles was inaccessible on YouTube. The page for the video
instead displayed the standard message: “This content is not available on this
country domain due to a legal complaint from the government.”
June 24 is the day
when Thailand commemorates the 1932 revolution which ended the country’s absolute monarchy.The
group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights said the request to block the video clip
was probably made by the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society. Veteran journalist
Pravit Rojanaphruk wrote on Twitter that the junta’s order is “hilariously
insane and dictatorial.”
Some activists wanted
to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the revolution by highlighting the
struggle to end the military dictatorship in the country. They accused the
junta of suppressing the rights of the people by using the Lese Majeste (law
against ‘royal insult’) law to detain and persecute government critics. On June 27, the video
was re-instated, but the story of its blocking remains a hot topic in Thai
media. The Bangkok Post
newspaper published an editorial describing the order to
block the video clip as the ‘worst decision’ of the government in preventing
the people from commemorating the 1932 revolution:
Once again, by its
aggressive censorship, the regime has only succeeded in making material more
popular. This regime seized
power on a single promise to bring reconciliation. It is not just failing at
the task. Actions such as the weekend attacks on sense and sensibility only
drive more wedges between factions and groups. The Post also reported
that since YouTube re-instated the video, its views have spiked from a few
hundred to several thousand.