Thailand bans ‘underboob’ selfies with a 5-year jail sentence

Thai women may want to think twice before snapping a boob-centric picture of themselves, following an edict from their government that such images violate the country’s Computer Crimes Act.

The 2007 law specifically bans anything that might cause “damage to the country’s security or causes public panic” as well as “any obscene computer data which is accessible to the public.” It says nothing about breasts, which are of course present on some 50 percent of people in Thailand and around the world.

Nonetheless, Thailand’s culture ministry said offenders would face up to five years in jail for taking a photo that featured visible underboob.

“When people take these ‘underboob selfies’ no one can see their faces,” said ministry spokesman Anandha Chouchoti. “So it’s like, we don’t know who these belong to, and it encourages others to do the same.”

Given said anonymity, it remains to be seen how Thai prosecutors would identify the women against whom they wanted to bring charges. Even the culture ministry seemed to recognize that such prosecutions would be next to impossible without a visible face.

“We can only warn people to not take it up,” Chouchoti said. “They are inappropriate actions.”

Photo via Vinoth Chandar/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)