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Vietnam Outlaws News Blogs, Claims
Foreign Servers Will Help, UN Security Council Review
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: New Media Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
January 1 -- Vietnam in late 2008 moved to regulate the blogosphere,
dictating that blogs remain entirely
"personal" and not
purport to report any news, much less state secrets.
The Vietnam government stated that
services such as Google and Yahoo will help
them enforce these "no news on blogs" rules. While Yahoo did turn
in
a Chinese dissident blogger to the government in Beijing, and Google has
a
history of "disappearing" content apparently at
its powerful
partners' request, Vietnam's claims seem anachronistic.
On December
31, Inner City Press was asked by Vietnam's mission to the United
Nations to
appear on Vietnam TV to review the country's year on the Security
Council,
judged to be one of the "Top Ten Vietnam News Stories of 2008." While
Vietnam has sought to keep human rights violations from Myanmar to
Zimbabwe off
the Security Council's agenda, its diplomats have not been unwilling to
answer
the Press' questions. During Vietnam's presidency of the Council in
July, its
Ambassador memorably told Inner City Press, when asked about a request
for
Council action by Cambodia in its UNESCO-enabled border dispute
with Thailand,
that "meeting postpone, issue
disappears."
But in
Vietnam itself, the goal seems to be to have news and social critique
disappear
from the Internet. In November,
Vietnam's
Deputy Minister of Information and Communications (MoIC) Do Quy Doan
argued that "as blogs are personal sites,
bloggers are not
allowed to use blogs to promote anti-state activities, war and
obscenity, or to
offend the honor or prestige of organizations and individuals or to
release
secret state documents."
Doan
subsequently signed into law circular 07/2008/TB-BTTT which provides
that blogs
shall not even "post links
which go to information that violate
Article 6 of Decree 97/2008, banning anyone who takes advantage of
the Internet
to deliver distorted information [or] reveal state secrets."
One step
down the bureaucratic ladder, the Chief of the MoIC’s Broadcasting,
Television and
Electronic Information Control Agency, Luu Vu Hai argued that
"when we use the press freedom right we have to obey the Press Law and we
couldn't use the press freedom right in a non-press environment."
At a press
conference about the circular, Doan was asked how the government would
"prevent 'black' blogs, blogs that are contrary to Vietnamese customs
and
habits?" He answered
that "most
bloggers in Vietnam are using services supplied by foreign service
providers...
After the circular takes effect in 2009, the two sides will exchange
information and cooperate with each other. I think service providers
also wish
to have a clean Internet environment. I think if state
agencies of Vietnam ask
for cooperation, Google or Yahoo will be willing too."
In the global blogosphere, who's watching whom?
Again, we
hope this is unlikely, even though Yahoo did turn in a Chinese
dissident
blogger to the government in Beijing, and Google has
a
history of "disappearing" content apparently at
its powerful
partners' request, click here for
that.
Deputy
Minister Doan went on to note that
"some say that blogs are personal
diaries. If they are personal diaries, they should be kept for
their authors,
or their friends or relatives. If they are opened for the public, they
are not
personal diaries anymore, but become electronic information pages... Blogs don't
represent any organization or release orthodox information."
But
corporations now promote themselves with blogs. The UN
in December invited
Inner City Press to make a presentation at an event promoting the
use of blogs,
click here
for the UN's summary of the session. The UN, not only an organization but calling
itself "The Organization," brags about
its own blogs. Would they be illegal in
Vietnam? Will the UN, though its compromised UNESCO or otherwise, say
anything
about this? organization but calling itself "
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
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here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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