Vietnam Imposes New Blogging Restrictions 206
GMAW is one of many to mention that the Vietnam government has approved a new set of regulations aimed at bloggers. The new restrictions ban bloggers from discussing certain subjects that the government deems sensitive or inappropriate. Not only are the topics limited, but bloggers are being directed to only write about issues that directly impact their personal lives. "The rules, which were approved Dec. 18, attempt to rein in Vietnam's booming blogosphere. It has become an alternative source of news for many in the communist country, where the media is state-controlled. The new rules require Internet companies that provide blogging platforms to report to the government every six months and provide information about bloggers on request."
Communism-- the gift that keeps on giving (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, I'll bet the Vietnamese are really loving that communism now. Good thing the U.S. withdrew and left an entire region of the earth to the whims of that benevolent political philosophy.
Re:Necessity (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Necessity (Score:4, Insightful)
I dunno if that's true. Though the only time that comes to mind is in times of (actual) war. The citizens should not allowed to publish the locations and troop strengths of army regiments, for example; it may directly endanger those soldiers.
Re:Necessity (Score:2, Insightful)
The closest thing perhaps to communism would be the isolated communities of indigenous peoples. While the closest thing to capitalism would be Hong Kong.
Re:Communist? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is absolutely true. They have a stock market and everything. They are very capitalist in that even the communist leaders are playing the markets, making investments, and trying to acquire as much wealth as they can. The free market is definitely in effect. The big difference is that there is little transparency and no real regulations to ensure that it is a fair market. So corruption is everywhere destroying the efficiency of the market. You are right: Is is capitalism without democracy.
Re:Necessity (Score:5, Insightful)
Communism like capitalism is an economic model and it has nothing to do with freedom of speech, religion or human rights.
Communism as espoused by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto required the use of public education as an instrument of social control, the destruction of the traditional family and the destruction of traditional religion.
"There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc. that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis"
"The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention"
"Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists."
There is of course some context to these quotes, which you can check out for yourself - http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61/61.txt [gutenberg.org]
I don't think it is unreasonable to use the Communist Manifesto to answer the question "What is communism?". The answer most definitely has everything to do with freedom of speech, religion and human rights.
Re:Necessity (Score:3, Insightful)
Though the only time that comes to mind is in times of (actual) war.
Governments all over the world frequently ask newspapers not to report stories.
Sometimes the Government claims 'National Security' and other times they just ask nicely.
Every now and then, a newspaper says no and a government scandal is born.
All you're really saying is that Western Nations aren't as blatant about their censorship...
No, they didn't (Score:3, Insightful)
In case you haven't heard of it, Vietnam didn't become a communist state as a result of some democratic process. Military force [wikipedia.org] was involved, with the help of foreign [wikipedia.org] powers [wikipedia.org]
Re:Necessity (Score:5, Insightful)
I think what he's saying is that governments who drive subversive speech underground aren't really doing themselves, or their citizens, any favors. Ideas don't need sunlight to grow.
Look at the US's case. We don't criminalize any speech, really, except kiddie porn and direct incitements to violence. (The McCain-Feingold campaign funding law is an arguable subject but there it's funding and timing, not content as such, that is involved.) So any nutcase with a chip on his shoulder can propagate the most outlandish, hateful tripe you could imagine. Things that would get him prosecuted in much of the EU, or executed in China.
What happens as a result? Not a damn thing. The resulting cacophony of dissidence just raises the "noise floor" of popular discourse. No radical point of view gains any more traction than it would have if it were aggressively suppressed by the government; if anything, we've become a more conservative nation since the Internet gave the nutcases their soapbox.
Suppressing speech is always pointless at best, and more likely counterproductive.
Re:Necessity (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it does not fall into the standard /. creed.
If you don't support the /. groupthink(which they say they hate but deeply love)(which is ironically doublethink) you will be downmodded as troll/flamebait/overrated. It seems that the overrated tag is made especially for this situation. Some people may disagree with a message that is not troll or flamebait so there needs to be a solution. That solution develops in the form of overrated. Overrated is nothing more than a cheap populous vote on the popularity of the opinion. Don't agree with a post? Mod it overrated/underrated to "correct" the score.
Slashdotters claim to believe in absolute freedom of speech but if your opinion is unpopular it is hidden from sight. Well, that isnt a problem because everybody can still see it via the view levels, right? True, but it obscures the message and that is all /. needs, to make it harder to see views that do not conform to groupthink. It's like the great firewall of China, people with will can surpass it but it stops most people from seeing unwanted information and that's enough for them.
Re:Necessity (Score:3, Insightful)
Governments all over the world frequently ask newspapers not to report stories.
Sometimes the Government claims 'National Security' and other times they just ask nicely.
Every now and then, a newspaper says no and a government scandal is born.
All you're really saying is that Western Nations aren't as blatant about their censorship...
I think the larger point is that the US and other nations with inherent freedom of the press have to ask news outlets to hold a story. In Vietnam, I'm quite certain they simply tell the press what they can and cannot say. One of those pesky little "checks and balances" Communism doesn't have to worry about.
Re:Didn't they choose Communism? (Score:3, Insightful)
Communism is a loaded propaganda term that's basically meaningless, but I'm guessing you mean "strong state socialism", which is an economic system. Strong state socialism with free communication and democracy would be an interesting experiment - we can see weak state socialism, working great, in Northern Europe.
Saying that Communism means Totalitarian Socialism would be like saying Capitalism means Fascism. It's certainly the way it was presented as a propaganda term during the cold war, but it's not terribly useful to accept that meaning.
Re:Didn't they choose Communism? (Score:3, Insightful)
Although to be fair, it was technically the previous generation that made the bed.
It's pretty easy to choose Communism when Democracy is blowing your babies in half.
Keep your newspeak to yourself. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's nothing like that at all. Communism is a political philosophy not a science. Evolutionary theory has changed in response to new evidence, as you would expect for any field of scientific endeavour. Coming up with a completely new and unrelated theory and calling it "evolution" would be fundamentally dishonest, as is coming up with new political theories and calling them "communism".
Redefining words to stifle opposing arguments is exactly the kind of behaviour to expect from people intent on destroying freedom of speech and human rights. I'm shocked to hear it from a communist, shocked I say!
Marx not a good enough source of information about communism? I doubt you'll manage to pull that one off very successfully. I suppose the rest of us have it all wrong and "communism" means "love"? Maybe I just need to be sent to a "re-education camp" to learn more about love. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?