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."
Necessity (Score:1, Interesting)
This is likely to be an extremely unpopular view but there are very legitimate reasons for a state to seek limits in the distribution of news, and limits to what its citizens communicate to outsiders. Most of these actions truly do have the welfare of the citizens and their crucial security in mind. These things are done to preserve their life most of the time.
Those of you raised in the west or who have lived your lives mostly in the west may not understand or remember the reality of living in weaker states. It is not my intent to write a thesis or anything approaching that so I'll stop this here. Just think about the real situation in Vietnam before going off on the usual tangents and starting the usual crusades.
Re:Necessity (Score:5, Interesting)
Nah, it's fascist bull just as we suspected. I lived in Vietnam for a year, married a Vietnamese woman, and spend at least two weeks there every year since. They have no legitimate need to censor the net other than to keep the current corrupt officials in power.
Re:Didn't they choose Communism? (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of them chose communism. A lot of them didn't. Having lived and worked over there (on a Linux related project even) I know good Vietnamese there who supported South Vietnam and the US. After the south fell they spent years in re-education camps. They had been to the US in the 60's and received training on computers and electronics. Now they don't own a single thing and are kept out of any good paying job by the communists who still seek to push the former South Vietnamese. They live in poverty even poor Americans cannot imagine. It is very sad what they are doing to their own country. But the poor brainwashed people of Vietnam still support communism.
I'm not sure we can really fault the poor and uneducated who chose communism. They were starving and were just looking for a better way. They did not have access to world news or history classes from their villages and only knew what they received in the form of propaganda.
But we can definitely fault the corrupt communist leadership for taking advantage of these poor people and making millions of them pay with their lives.