Thai Gaming Sites Ordered Shut Down After Suicide 82
eldavojohn writes "Seventy-two websites have been ordered shut down by the courts in Thailand following the suicide of a 12-year-old boy who jumped from the sixth story of his school after his father banned him from playing computer games. This brings more action from the court: 'Some websites are rumored to take in over 100 million baht from online betting a night at peak periods, causing huge economic losses to the country. To prevent online gambling, the DSI, also a member of the internet safety committee, would notify all Internet service providers across the country about the court order. From now on, any provider found to encourage or provide online gambling will not only face a jail term and a fine, but also have his/her ISP license revoked by the ICT.' Thailand is no stranger to internet censorship of various sites."
Online gambling (Score:5, Informative)
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from TFA
There were several factors that drove people [an alarming rate] to commit suicide. Family problems topped the list. Other factors included physical and mental problems, economic hardships, poor income and unemployment.
I think I see what's going on here. People might start to realize how shitty their government is if they don't start bringing up red herrings. Otherwise, they wouldn't implement the same action that caused a kid to kill himself on everyone else.
From someone who cares... (Score:1)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction [wikipedia.org]
How come there isn't software to identify addiction? Or government agencies? Or social groups? My strip club addiction is poison to my wallet and my life. Where's my handout? I think we as people should have identified this long ago. It's not any kind of particular addiction, it's addiction itself. If we had it burned in at an early age on how to identify and combat, then no more global warming, no more WOW binges, no more drug cartels, no more casino empire, no more te
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Sounds more like you are trying to ban enjoyment than addiction. People could become addicted to any rewarding behaviour. It is primarily up to the individual to not take that behaviour too far, you can't keep blaming the government or other external factors for everything. They can play a part but if they really did step in you'd realise you didn't want them to after all. Imagine all alcoholics were forcibly restrained from drinking rather than being given a chance to get their shit together themselves. Th
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so let me get this right... (Score:5, Insightful)
a dad banned his kid from playing games and the kid killed himself.
then...
the thai government says this is bad, we need to stop those gaming sites.
then...
the thai government effectively bans everyone from gaming?
and no one else is supposed to kill themselves?
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Maybe you should book your flight now?
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Ban *everyone*? OMG Mass suicides!
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Wait... your right! No one else killed themselves... Hmm. Maybe they don't need to shut do--NO IT'S FOR THE CHILDREN YOU BASTARD.
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Thailand has an interesting culture/leadership (and by interesting, I mean crazy).
Let's ban youtube because some random put a video there, in which the king had shoes on his head. Let's also ban gaming sites because some twerp jumped off a roof. But, let's ignore if not support at a federal level, the real problems (child prostitution, human trafficking might be a good place to start)
Sure, I realize the current government is a quasi-military clusterfuck, but really--it seems any kind of energy on their part
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the thai government effectively bans everyone from gaming? and no one else is supposed to kill themselves?
[sarcasm] Why not? That sure worked well when that kid killed himself after playing too much dungeons and dragons, and parents everywhere started forbidding their kids from playing it as well! D&D is dead now, and that kid is remembered as a hero for destroying an evil game... [/sarcasm]
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Imagine if the suicide of 15-year-old Edward Seidel [lpmuds.net] over the cancellation of the original Battlestar Galactica [wikipedia.org] led to the end of all science fiction television in the US in 1979!
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
What do gambling sites have to do with the suicide of a 12-year-old?
Also, I find it funny that the response to a boy committing suicide when he was banned from playing games is to ban the entire country from playing games.
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I'm too lazy to RTFA, naturally, but it appears that in this case it's not "online gaming" as in WoW, it's "online gaming" as in Pokerstars.net or UltimateBet.com.
They are technically online games, but they are betting sites.
If I'm wrong, and Thai judjes' leap of logic was "Boy commits suicide over not being allowed to play WoW, therefore we should ban all gambling websites", then Thailand has got to be one fucked up place.
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It's a pretty weird place. I heard their police have to wear smiley-face masks to disguise their true feelings towards criminals.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Government business as usual. At least they haven't invaded another country or two..
Is it just me? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sounds like he needed better parenting, let alone the fact that a child who commits suicide over something like that obviously had some other issues.
I'm waiting to see the suicide rates after this move. If it's only a few more, there's obviously no reason for the ban. If people commit suicide by the hundreds, we have a definite proof Darwin was right.
At any rate, why don't we start making games fun instead of addictive?
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> If people commit suicide by the hundreds, ... then we leave the ban in place a little longer. Pretty soon everyone who was going to kill themselves has done so. Problem solved, gaming turned back on for everyone else.
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People often assume that people become addicted to computer games, and then they neglect their life and it falls apart and the games are therefore to blame. This is backwards, imo. People only become addicted to games when they are already depressed or when their life seems so bad that they crave the escapism games can provide. Gaming attracts unhappy people, it doesn't *make* them unhappy.
Until people learn this lesson and start treating gaming addiction as the *symptom* of an underlying issue, rather t
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Why.... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Not Clearly Related (Score:5, Insightful)
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You're right... there would appear to indeed be very little indication the events were related.
Think the reporter may have fallen ill to a Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy here.
(Or just failed to include the quote or specific information linking the two events)
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In Thailand a few years back a father beat his son to death with a metal pipe because of his video game addiction.
I wouldn't be so quick to blame the websites...
Wolfram Alpha is good for something... (Score:5, Interesting)
100 million Thai baht = 2.9121 million U.S. dollars, annualized == $1.058 billion (granted that's a peak period, so it's probably half that)
Thailand's Population == 63.9 million
Thailand's GDP / Thailand's population == $3718
Thailand's game website expenditure (peak night) / population == about $22 or 215% of annualised GDP per capita!
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hm.. I suppose it could be a school bully, and since he failed to login to the game to pay his "protection gold," he got targetted.
Don't worry ... (Score:2, Funny)
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Dark, clever, full of funny. Excellently played.
Could happen here. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod me down as a troll if you really want, but I feel like the intellectual zeitgeist in in Western countries is moving in a direction where this could very well happen.
Individualism, "personal responsibly" (often a bad buzzword, but whatever), individual rights, etc, are becoming more and more vilified in favor of "social responsibility" and "community values." Think I'm paranoid? You haven't been to a college campus recently. This applies to both the "left" and the "right" of course, but the "right" in American terms is losing ground particularly among youth so I'll just focus on left-wing politics.
It may yet still be over the horizon, but the notion of protecting people over the greater good is not new and I feel that the overall premise is whittling away at free speech. After all, if people can use rhetoric against hate crimes as having no "social value" or against guns in a similar fashion, what's the stop someone from also applying the same principles to speech and entertainment? They can just ask the same question, "what's the social value of video games?" and really your only answer is that "Well, I and others enjoy them" in which case you're a heartless selfish bastard that won't think of the poor kids. A misleading argument, since "social value" is always their OWN subjective determination of what's good and what's not, of course...
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The only way to prevent these tragedies... (Score:5, Funny)
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OMG! (Score:1)
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slashdot or slashdotted?
To Spoiled Rotten Children: It's only a game! (Score:3, Insightful)
The court hasn't though about the children and the adults who know it is just a game.
So your dad grounded you from video games. SUCK IT UP! Do your punishment and get it over with. Unless your dad caught you going to some illegal gambling website (which I doubt any 12 y.o. would be doing) or going to one of the nefarious websites that have numbers that are unnecessary and strange suffixes, there is no reason for bratty behavior.
So you are banned from World of Warcraft for a week. Is killing yourself in real life going to resolve anything?
Thailand may think they may have people's best interest at heart but it is foolish to make a federal case out of an incident where parents must be accounable for their children's actions, not the government. Unless the kid steals a PS3 from a shop, mom and dad need to increase their discipline.
Remember, If you love you're children BEAT THEM! [thebestpag...iverse.net]
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Remember, If you love you're children BEAT THEM! [thebestpag...iverse.net]
You beat them so they won't jump off the roof? I'm not sure that's going to help in this case.
Beatings result in fear and/or anger, that's all. There is no "lesson learned". You might as well say an abusive husband is "teaching" his wife (and they say it, AFAIK).
Someone that lives in fear will fear life. Anger too, doesn't make a healthy mind. The kid might hold a grudge against his parents. It doesn't matter whether the kid will do something against them (and probably won't), but chances are the kid will
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They associate undesirable behavior with pain. Most kids try to avoid pain, hence they'll learn to avoid whatever it is that lead you to discipline them.
They associate pain with their parents. This is bad because ones' relationship with their parents tends to be a template for their relationships with other people of the respective genders.
And sometimes he is. Just because she's an adult doesn't mean she's incapable of making mistakes.
Does that mean that since I percieve you to be making a mistake in the way you see education, it's OK for me to beat you? Adults make mistakes, after all.
discipline !abuse (Score:2)
Our parents were pretty good about keeping the dangerous stuff locked up, on high shelves, out of the way of little hands, but the world is full of pot
TFA combines two unrelated stories (Score:5, Informative)
Just what do you think you are doing? (Score:3, Interesting)
You are using fact and reason to point out the sky isn't falling down. Do you know the harm this is doing to slashdot's advertising revenue? They NEED stories like this and wild random speculation on it to draw visitors. You sir are stealing the food out of the mouth of poor slashdot editors who hardly could get any other job with their skills. I hope you are proud of yourself.
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My bad, I stand corrected.
So, a thief goes to jail. How shocking (Score:2)
You already been corrected on the drugs case, but what exactly is wrong with sentencing someone for a crime? There seems to be a lot missing from this story and the way it is written is the typical "we always write we want the goverment to be though on crime except when there is a sob story in it".
And considering that australia, the goverment this woman supports with her tax money, treats immigrants as prisoners, shouldn't you first look to your own legal system?
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AC:
About the Australian woman, your info is wrong. She was sentenced to two years by the judge and reduced to 1 year probation.
You misread. I said she was FACING 5 years, which is what was reported here.
SmallFurryCreature:
You already been corrected on the drugs case, but what exactly is wrong with sentencing someone for a crime? There seems to be a lot missing from this story and the way it is written is the typical "we always write we want the goverment to be though on crime except when there is a sob story in it".
And considering that australia, the goverment this woman supports with her tax money, treats immigrants as prisoners, shouldn't you first look to your own legal system?
Illegal immigrants are different to immigrants. There are legal ways to enter this country under immigrant or refugee status. I'm not sure what country you're from, but how would you like thousands of people from other countries entering your nation every year taking your jobs, leeching off your governments welfare scheme and bringing disease in as they don't pass through customs? I'm not advocating locking refugees in detention centres, far from it. But there are better ways to enter
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The bar mat cost 60 USD and was a meter long thing made out of rubber. When stopped by the police she ran away. If it was in the US she'd be jailed too (and for longer then this women), or are you one of those assholes who believes rich foreigners should be allowed to break the law in Thailand?
It's a stupid example anyway because she only spent 3 days in jail and was fined 28 USD. So yes, the punishment does fit the crime.
Next time don't try to steal things and you won't be put in jail (imagine that!).
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Rating Games (Score:1)
Homonymbosity (Score:2)
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No it's international. The US and UK use this term too.
wouldn't this just excacerbate the problem? (Score:2)
So, here's how I see it. As we can see, taking the game away from people can cause them to commit suicide.
Father bans game from kid.
Kid commits suicide.
State bans games from everybody.
Kids all over the country commit suicide.