A rap song called Prathet Ku Mee (Which is My Country) has accumulated 25 million views on YouTube since its release. Thai rappers recorded the track with sharp lyrics aimed at government corruption,
A rap song called Prathet Ku Mee (Which is My Country) has accumulated 25 million views on YouTube since its release. Thai rappers recorded the track with sharp lyrics aimed at government corruption, military rule, and censorship. By October 27, 2018, listeners had pushed it to the top of Thailand's iTunes download rankings.
Filmed in black and white, the video appears to target Prayut Chan-O-Cha, the junta leader. Thailand's military has governed the country since 2014. One of the rappers' key lines reads: "The Parliament House is the soldier's play yard. The charter is written and erased by the Army's boots."
Government officials moved to suppress the song, warning the public against watching or sharing it and contending it violated Thai law. Srivara Ransibrahmanakul, the deputy national police chief, indicated that officers were weighing charges against the artists. He warned musicians to obey the law in their work, saying that "it wouldn't be good for them or their families if the songs were deemed to violate the law."
Siriwat Deephor, speaking for the Technology Crime Suppression Division, said the investigation would take time. "It's under consideration by investigators, and it will take a few days because it's a sensitive issue," Deephor said, according to the South China Morning Post. He suggested the government might pursue people who shared the video. "If this song violates the Computer Crime Act by uploading false information, those who share would be prosecuted and face the same punishment with those who uploaded it," Deephor said.
To preserve the song against censorship, supporters placed an IPFS link to the video on the ZCoin blockchain at block number 111089.
Poramin Insom, founder and lead developer of Zcoin, explained the approach. The transaction employed Zcoin's Zerocoin protocol, which destroys the transaction history of the coins involved, concealing the identity of whoever posted the link. The IPFS link itself remained public, accessible through a block explorer.
"Anyone can access the link by going to a block explorer taking the link and putting it into IPFS," Insom said.
Insom described Zcoin as aiming to "enhance privacy in all its forms," whether for people escaping corrupt systems or defending free expression. Blockchain's central features, transparency and immutability, make it effective against censorship, he argued.
"Blockchain can be applied to so many different use cases, but the idea that it can be a new avenue for mitigating censorship shows how incredibly versatile the technology is. While websites and social media can be blocked or taken down, it's almost impossible to alter a public blockchain like Zcoin, although the audience reach is significantly less than traditional media," Insom said.
