Late Night Gaming Banned In Vietnam

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Late Night Gaming Banned In Vietnam

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday February 21, 2011 @04:51AM from the sleep-is-important dept.

R3d M3rcury writes "Vietnam's Ministry of Information and Communication has asked ISPs to block access to on-line games between 10:00PM and 8:00AM. 'The request, made on Wednesday, is another move from the authority to mitigate the side effects of online games. The request follows numerous stiff measures by the ministry to tackle the issue, including cutting internet access to agents at night beginning last September.'"

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Is it a virus? Is it an alien parasite? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-21 04:56 · Score: 2, Funny

What has gotten into governments the world over? Why does everyone think you can censor the internet all of a sudden? (Captcha: fascism. No kidding.)
1. Re:Is it a virus? Is it an alien parasite? by dkleinsc · 2011-02-21 05:33 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  This is how real totalitarianism works. It's not necessarily how real socialism works.
  For instance, by US standards, Norway is a socialist country (with high taxes, an extensive welfare state, etc). It's also a parliamentary democracy for intents and purposes. And Norway would never seriously propose that sort of law.
  
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  I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
2. Re:Is it a virus? Is it an alien parasite? by khallow · 2011-02-21 05:37 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  "All of a sudden"? This isn't a change from government as usual. The internet didn't register as something to control before. Governments didn't have the technical capabilities a few years ago. And the media wasn't sensitized to the issue a few years ago.
3. Re:Is it a virus? Is it an alien parasite? by Mashiki · 2011-02-21 08:12 · Score: 2
  
  No but it(norway) would support others. An example would be the lack of freedom of expression in order to protect an individuals feelings, on a perceived issue.
  
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  Om, nomnomnom...
4. Re:Is it a virus? Is it an alien parasite? by LordNacho · 2011-02-21 08:20 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  And Norway would never seriously propose that sort of law.
  Are you telling us they don't regulate behaviour, which is what banning late night gaming is? Just because they don't have this particular rule doesn't mean they don't interfere in what ought to be people's own right to decide, which is the real issue. For instance, they have a rule about the composition of boards: you need a certain proportion of women. (Well, of each sex, but you know what that means.)
Price Increase by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-21 04:59 · Score: 3, Funny

And in other news - WoW gold follows Crude Oil and jumps 5% over night :s
Damn relentless asian kids and their gaming skills by inAbsurdum · 2011-02-21 05:01 · Score: 2

NOW I understand why I always get a thorough a**-whooping whenever I try playing Battlefield Vietnam.

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-- I am the Monkey Guru.
No late-night gaming on the internet? by mrjb · 2011-02-21 05:03 · Score: 4, Funny

That's a shame. Now children will have to get back to their regular scheduled gambling- and drinking games.

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Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Unfair to those who are responsible... by realsilly · 2011-02-21 05:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

If you're a hard working individual who works 10+ hours a day in Vietnam, you're losing one of those things that allows you some freedom.... your time on the internet during your own free time. I couldn't get to the site to read the article, but my guess it that the ministry is trying to control what people do on the internet, and maybe they can justify their reasoning, but from my perspective, they are overstepping their boundaries.
Maybe later the website will load and I'll be able to actually read the article.

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Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
1. Re:Unfair to those who are responsible... by somersault · 2011-02-21 05:10 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Maybe later the website will load and I'll be able to actually read the article.
  Try coming back around 8AM 'Nam time.
  
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  which is totally what she said
2. Re:Unfair to those who are responsible... by CaseM · 2011-02-21 05:31 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I'll be able to actually read the article.
  This is slashdot. Reading an article is never required to comment on its content.
3. Re:Unfair to those who are responsible... by causality · 2011-02-21 05:35 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  but my guess it that the ministry is trying to control what people do on the internet
  That's about the size of it. It's amazing how threatened so many governments feel by the unrestricted free flow of information.
  
  and maybe they can justify their reasoning, but from my perspective, they are overstepping their boundaries.
  Of course they can make justifications (i.e. excuses) for it. Every last fascist, authoritarian, power-tripping fevered ego that ever existed has always had one powerful tool: a well-articulated bureaucracy. The tyrant (which may be a person or an organization) intentionally lies and makes excuses for why it's really an act of overwhelming benevolence. Then the more naive people eat it up and become what are known as "useful idiots".
  We have those in the 'States too. They're generally the ones who don't study much history. When you point out a recurring pattern and explain why it's not a good thing to support, they call you a tinfoil hat-wearing nutter. They think every instance of an organization acting against our interests requires a pre-arranged back-room type of conspiracy, when really all it requires is a lot of selfishness and apathy. They definitely don't say "here is where you are mistaken, and this is my evidence or my sound reasoning". If hardcore tyranny should come to the USA it will be because they and their "we are somehow special, it can't ever never ever happen here so let's get complacent!" attitude played an instrumental role.
  So yes, I am absolutely certain the Vietnamese government will justify (rationalize) their position. That's a prerequisite, a necessary ability they must secure prior to taking an action like this. That is how it has always happened throughout history. Politicians as people generally don't become dictators by openly announcing "hey, I want to be a tyrant, vote for me!" Likewise, governments as organizations don't generally expand their power by saying "we just want to oppress you". It's always for your own good, to protect you from something or another, to deal with some hated enemy, etc.
  
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  It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
4. Re:Unfair to those who are responsible... by derGoldstein · 2011-02-21 05:46 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  When you use /. in "Strict" mode, you don't even get a link to the article...
  
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  Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
5. Re:Unfair to those who are responsible... by DNS-and-BIND · 2011-02-21 05:51 · Score: 3
  
  "Useful idiots"? That means Westerners who were openly sympathetic to the Soviet cause. The Soviets knew their own system well and found it beyond belief that well-off Westerners ached to apply the same system to their own societies. The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for putting a happy face on the Ukrainian genocide, for one example.
  
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  Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
This makes me laugh by schnikies79 · 2011-02-21 05:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

Banning late-night gaming is pretty silly, but I have to admit, it makes me laugh to think of the WOW players sweating the night out.
World of Warcraft players are ridiculous.

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Gone!
Re:Only one reply possible for the Minister by somersault · 2011-02-21 05:11 · Score: 5, Insightful

Gaming over TOR? You'd be better off playing Correspondence Chess via snail mail.

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which is totally what she said
Re:Spike in VPN usage? by OrangeTide · 2011-02-21 05:19 · Score: 2

gaming through a VPN is not great, the latency is noticeable.

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“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Re:If your government shuts down your MMORPG.... by Dr.+Spork · 2011-02-21 05:23 · Score: 2

I was thinking the same thing: Don't governments want pliant, opiated masses? And aren't video games just about the best antidote to civil unrest? Hell, forget about protesting. Those kids won't even go outside.
Rescheduling by mehrotra.akash · 2011-02-21 05:24 · Score: 4, Interesting

So, now rather than the schedule being something like
School -> Homework -> Games
It will be
School->Games->Homework
Homework refers to anything productive done..
So, rather than spending the end of their day gaming, when you would be tired anyways, spend the time when you are not so tired gaming, and the time when you are tired doing productive stuff.
How is that good??
Re:THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR BEING COMMIES !! by falzer · 2011-02-21 05:44 · Score: 2

~17% of russian roulette players later admitted to regretting it.
It's for your own good by DNS-and-BIND · 2011-02-21 05:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

It's funny - there's this typical consensus on Slashdot that the world would be a better place if only The Smart People were in charge and could make the difficult, unpopular decisions that we need to become a true progressive, multicultural society. Instead, time after time we get uneducated dipshits who make random decisions and let things go to hell because there's no direction or overarching plan to ensure a good outcome. A simple faith that things will turn out all right as long as people do whatever they want is scorned as the province of hicks and other lesser minds.
In Vietnam, the smart people really are in charge. The Party doesn't allow just anyone to join, you know. Students are identified by merit and only the best allowed to join. Party work takes up a lot of college time that would otherwise be spent partying. Policies like this one are hammered out by sober, highly educated people for the good of the people they rule. If you have a Ph.D too, then you might be able to have a seat at the table, but please be quiet otherwise as you're simply not qualified to discuss weighty topics. Vietnam's experts have identified a problem with society. The problem is not gaming specifically, but the negative side effects associated where gaming appears. Having identified this problem, they are now proceeding with a solution and will not deviate from that course, no matter how loud the protests are. After all, a child cries when he's told to go to bed when you know he'll get cranky and angry if he doesn't. It's distressing to see responses on Slashdot of all places, that decisions of smart people are being dumped on.

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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
1. Re:It's for your own good by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-21 06:07 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  What are you talking about? I've lived in Saigon--err, Thành ph H Chí Minh--for the past five years, I know hundreds of students, and I can attest that the party most definitely does _not_ skim off the best and brightest. This notion that a young generation of technocrats is populating the party apparatus is just that--a notion, and a ridiculous one at that. Smart kids with money go overseas for school, smart locals stuck here goto UTech, FTU or National, and no young person with a brain thinks to join the party--at least not in the cities. It might be a little different in the middle of nowhere--Ca Mau or somesuch--but hereabouts, and in Hanoi as well, the party is a dumping ground for risk adverse types looking to grind away at dull jobs for a decade or so, earning $100/month, until they're finally connected enough to begin sitting on committees and learning where the next zoned industrial areas will be--at which point the family cashes in big time.
2. Re:It's for your own good by LetterRip · 2011-02-21 07:16 · Score: 2
  
  So Party members defer instant gratification and instead work towards long-term goals. That's the definition of smart right there.
  Then there's the issue of working yourself into a position where you can use your intellect to benefit others which we call altruism. Again, a trait that the smart people share.
  Altruism is not correlated positively or negatively with intelligence.
  See 'The Ways and Powers of Love: types, factors and techniques of moral Transformation' which summarizes some of the relevant research.
  I realize you are likely just a troll, but thought I'd correct your disinformation.
Re:We wish we could do that by lgw · 2011-02-21 05:58 · Score: 2

I don't waste any more time at work with the internet than I did pre-Internet. And occasionally the Internet helps me get my job done. That's probably pretty common.

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Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
And nothing will change by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-21 06:02 · Score: 2, Interesting

Vietnamese here. It is just another law that nobody cares about in Vietnam. Remember the law that mandate FOSS usage back in 2008? Nothing has changed since then. Well, maybe the internet shop will have to bribe the local police more, but that is it. Online gaming has bad effect on the youth, that is true to some degree, but people are blaming too many things on it, so the government tries to show that it is doing something. And the fact that they ban it means they failed to control it.
PS: Online FPS in Vietnam have to change the knife to a wooden hammer, and the blood color to pink (or remove the blood effect completely) to avoid being branded as 'encouraging violent behaviours".
Re:My hours are mine by uncanny · 2011-02-21 06:07 · Score: 2

they dont care
Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton will love this. by X86Daddy · 2011-02-21 07:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

Joe Lieberman and/or Hillary Clinton will clamor for the same in our "free" country next, because they think it's just no fair that these other countries get to wreck their people's computer use while the US citizens have no such interference.
Lieberman's "kill switch" request and the two of them grandstanding over the Grand Theft Auto Hot Coffee mod showed them to be exactly this disgusting and sinister, belonging absolutely nowhere near having domestic powers in the "land of the free."
And those two are just the obvious and outspoken ones...
Re:Damn relentless asian kids and their gaming ski by Concerned+Onlooker · 2011-02-21 08:17 · Score: 3, Funny

I think if you are from the US this is always going to happen. Just a matter of historical accuracy.

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http://www.rootstrikers.org/