VIETNAM: Global Markets Are Fine, Not Cyberspace

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Tran Dinh Thanh Lam

Ho Chi Minh City , Aug 14 2005 (IPS) - Vietnam is doing everything it can to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO) this year but at the same time its communist government is doing its best to restrict cyber cafes – the main window to the rest of the world for ordinary citizens.

No less than four ministries – public security (MS), posts and telecom (MPT), culture and information (MCI), and planning and investment (MPI) – – have joined hands to ”regulate and standardise the fledgeling and troublesome Internet cafes business”.

Yet, while conformists and officialdom are one in welcoming new restrictions imposed last month as an effective method of combating ‘evil schemes’, radicals and free thinkers see in them attempts by the government to put more barriers on free access to cyberspace.

Since logging into the World Wide Web in 1997, communist Vietnam has been supervising access to the global information highway. A decree affirms the government’s determination to ”manage and control Internet in Vietnam as well as services of this network, manage gateways to abroad to be able to link with Internet; control the content of information on Internet”.

But the increasing number of Internet users, including those who patronise the popular cyber cafes, has made the government’s efforts to control access to web content cumbersome.

Last year, the Vietnam Internet Centre reported that the number of internet subscribers had jumped from 823,000 in 2003 to more than two million. Alongside, the number of web surfers at Internet cafes have doubled and now represent for 7.35 percent of the country’s population of 83 million people.

Following the introduction of broadband (ADSL) services, Internet cafes have become affordable places for young, impressionable people to communicate with the outside world.

”Teenagers and young people are the main customers of these Internet cafes. What are they doing there? They usually play games, chat, write e- mail; but rarely research or study,” complained MCI deputy minister Do Quy Doan.

Police seem ready to back up the idea that some ‘bad eggs’ are taking advantage of lax controls to download or upload ‘illegal content’ from nude pictures of famous artistes to anti-government documents.

”Up to 90 percent of young people have viewed pornographic sites, while 26 out of 28 supervised cafes had evidence of sex sites on their computers,” reported Nguyen Van, head of a posts and telecom office investigating team. He added that many cyber cafes allow surfers to access explicit websites.

To monitor internet cafes, MCI last year requested internet services providers (ISPs) to improve management by setting up more effective firewalls that filter out unacceptable web pages. MCI has also asked individuals and organisations to apply for licences when they set up their own websites.

The latest controls demand that cafe owners register clients’ details, including name, age, address and ID number; to monitor sites visited by means of software supplied by their ISPs. They are also asked to close shop before midnight, and disallow under-14 children, unless accompanied by adults.

MCI minister Doan explains: ”These regulations answer public concern about the bad environment shown by the majority of Internet cafes. Many people have come and told us to do something right away if we don’t want to have to deal with more ‘evil dens’ later on”.

Doan was referring to raids conducted at some karaoke bars and nightclubs in the national capital and in Hanoi when hundreds of young people were arrested for dancing or making love while under the effect of ‘ecstasy’ or other mind-benders.

In the past few years, drugs, pornographic videos and abortions have become issues in schools and colleges and cause for great concern to parents and educators.

”Many young people, particularly students, have begun using amphetamines and ecstasy,” Colonel Nguyen Duc Nhanh, deputy director of the Hanoi Police said at a press conference. ”This is an alarming trend among the nation’s youth .àif no measures are taken, the phenomenon could reach epidemic proportions and become part of Hanoi’s mainstream youth culture, undermining wider social stability”.

Apparently, measures to combat the scenario painted by the police colonel include tighter controls on internet cafes.

”I heartily appreciate the new regulations,” 48-year-old homemaker Nguyen Thi Thuong told IPS. ”My daughter usually goes to Internet cafes, but I cannot know what she’s doing there”.

Nguyen Ba, 70, thought that asking cyber cafe users to show their ID cards could limit many abuses of the internet, especially after midnight. ”At that time, Internet cafes become just a place to look for sex partners online. Some prostitutes even use webcams in cafes to market their charms”.

However, the majority of Internet cafe owners and their clients do not agree with these assertions. ”We are not policemen,” said Tran Trung, owner of Than Huu Net on Ly Thuong Kiet Street, Tan Binh District, HCMC, referring to the obligation for Internet cafe owners to demand to see clients’ ID.

Regarding parents’ fear of the bad influences on the minds of their kids, Trung said: ”It is better for teenagers to come here and surf the web in public than stay online alone at home”.

” Do you need to show your ID card when entering a bar or a nightclub? So, what is the need to show it at Internet cafes? Are they worse places than karaoke bars and dancing venues?”, wondered Van Thanh Trung, 21, a third-year student at HCMC Polytechnics.

Trung told IPS that he thought the real reason for the new laws may be political rather than ethics and morals. ”Last year, they asked website builders to apply for a licence so as to monitor the content uploaded to the internet. This year, they request ID card and web page tracking in order to monitor downloaded content”.

The Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) is preparing for its 10th Congress, which is expected to set new directions and choose new leaders to guide the party into the era of globalisation and free market.

Several Vietnamese dissidents and democracy activists living in the country as well as abroad have taken this opportunity to intensify their criticism of the VCP on the Internet. ”These sensitive times demand more control of the internet,” Trung said.

Both the United States and the European Union support Vietnam’s entry into WTO and this country has been revising its laws to ensure that end although the new restrictions on internet access seem to run counter to the general policy of opening up.