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Online Law Banning Discussion of Current Affairs Comes Into Force In Vietnam
another random user writes in with news about new internet restrictions come into effect in Vietnam. "A controversial law banning Vietnamese online users from discussing current affairs has come into effect. The decree, known as Decree 72, says blogs and social websites should not be used to share news articles, but only personal information. The law also requires foreign internet companies to keep their local servers inside Vietnam. The new law specifies that social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook should only be used 'to provide and exchange personal information.' It also prohibits the online publication of material that "opposes" the Vietnamese government or 'harms national security.' Last month the US embassy in Hanoi said it was 'deeply concerned by the decree's provisions,' arguing that 'fundamental freedoms apply online just as they do offline.'"
And the US is in a position to be talking about "fundamental freedoms"?
Repeat after me: "fundamental freedoms apply online just as they do offline"
Banning everything except for sharing personal information? That's a little backwards
Suck it you assholes.
Take you decree 72 and shove it up you arse, you blithering pillocks.
Shall we talk about Le Anh Hung or old stuff like the PMU18 scandal?
Or about the countless political prisoners you stupid idiots have jailed.
Thou art as loathsome as a toad. Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed, carbuncle in my corrupted blood.
We should invade Vietnam to teach them a lesson.
The 'first rule' of Vietnam is don't talk about Vietnam. I'm sure that will work wonders and be effective beyond belief ... as long as they've never heard of Streisand in Vietnam.
How are they supposed to tell people what they're not supposed to talk about?
so you can say things such as N!CK:884*/KSJLA1&O83-OWIP+P3 with absolutely 0 concerns.
.. will hinder the NSA from finding out what's going in Vietnam.
There's so many reports of Censorship in Vietnam it basically shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
Could the servers be hosted in the US embassy ? that within in vietnam might not be Vietnam soil but
We should send in the military to help out those poor oppressed people. Sure, an invasion is excessive and would look bad, but we could certainly send in a few "advisors" under the radar, and see how that goes...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I wonder if this law also prohibits foreigners in Vietnam from posting information about current events (like this new law for instance). I also wonder what kinds of things they will interpret as reducing "national security". Are they going to start shutting down internet cafes now or just require ID in order to use a computer there and introduce mandatory video surveillance etc? It really is too bad that America lost the war there. America had no business being there in the first place but this sort of thing is ugly.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
How about use satellites, or balloons, or drones, to give them free uncensored internet, and let them exercise their unalienable right to liberty regardless of what their government says?
We could do it in Syria, too. Why aren't we discussing nonviolent options?
How about doing it in the U.S.A.? They are so busy hauling all the haystack in that they can't be bothered with a few stray straws of low-bandwidth side channels travelling at pseudo-noised spread spectrum shortwave.
Who needs the government all over one's underwear drawers?
I'd be quite happy to use the NSA - or the VNA as mail system - excellent phone, sms, social network and email search integration, unlimited storage, and an unbeatable price!
As for freedoms, at first glance it would seem that people are more free in the US than in Vietnam, but on the other hand I don't think that Vietnam is really interested in reading the mail of the other 90% of the world.
"And the US is in a position to be talking about "fundamental freedoms"?" to a country whose people it slaughtered while fighting to impose a neo-colonial government?
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Would rather do business with Communist than in our own trickle down economy.
... with evil leaders of Vietnam who are not representing the Vietnamese people at all.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I think the US should send thousands of troops to 'Nam to ensure freedom and liberty. It worked last time, didn't it.... :-P
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Is this a new tag? I've never seen before, but I definitely approve.
Yes, our govt should provide free internet. And we need to vote out the bums who support surveillance, It's up to us; power resides in We the People.
These provisions are absolutely disgusting, but less restrictive than the laws I live under in a bourgeois liberal democracy.
The hypocrisy from the US on this topic is palpable.
Do you speak it?
The law itself is not "online." Perhaps it is by a matter of incidence (it is likely published online, on a government website), but not inheritance; and surely not what you meant by your choice of phrasing.
It is categorically an idea, not a physical noun, and therefore, cannot be contained within something. It certainly can't be entirely contained "online."
The title should be: Law Banning Online Discussion of Current Affairs Comes into Effect.
Phrasing is important. Words mean shit.
you are not allowed to report about getting "National Security Letters" demanding to wiretap and keylog your entire infrastructure,
That might not be true. It's in the courts right now, I fully expect it to be overturned.
So what? They have worked for 10+ years. Then the government will invent "Secret Security Missives" which will not allow you to talk to anybody including the courts on pain of internment. Just like the NSLs. It takes several people going to the slammer and/or sacrificing their useful life to the purpose and quite a few years until such an illegal contraption is overturned. There are no punishments or even hardly admonishments for the violators of the constitution, only for those standing in for it. So the next cycle is started.
As long as it's so much cheaper to break the constitution than to stand in for it, the game can and will carry on indefinitely.
Criticism of Dear Leader is of course, treason. All Hail Barry.
You left out CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS. Just for fun, throw in Pat Robertson's news show too. Every corporate sponsored network has a head honcho who sets the political tone of what's shown on the air, including news.
Fox is just the most blatantly overt about their political bias/favoritism, and fact-filtering in their reporting.
System alert!
Hello this is the 22nd century, as "since forever" we don't do facts no more, they do not exist, can not exist, and if they did exist they would be illegal and no one would never find them.
But as usual feel free to use some of our facts if you really have to, we made them just for you, they're legal and available and free and easily attainable too :)
If you are not satisfied we will provide other new facts for you. And if you don't like those either then perhaps it would be easier if you just told what you want to be true so we can make the right facts for you.
Or maybe the issue is that after 40 years you took notice of a missing fact rather than ignoring whatever doesn't fit your facts. Stop doing that please or we will have to make even more new facts for everybody until they're back on track on whatever side of whatever fence they want to be.
Remember: this post is not a fact and there are no guarantees provided with facts.
What do you expect from a nation where:
- It is illegal to report a corrupt official.
- It is illegal to report someone attempting to bribe you.
- It is common for police to demand bribes in exchange for enforcing the laws.
Lets not even get into the Human Trafficking aspects of it.
The difference is that Fox is first and foremost a political organisation, it's the marketing arm of the republican party. The others are just lazy media organisations that do little else but read whatever press releases their sponsers send them.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
No, we still have free/open discussion, as it's still perfectly legal to write about current events online -- the fact that mainstream sources are no longer reliable is completely separate, as people like us tend to find more accurate/honest coverage elsewhere. If we didn't have free/open discussion, you and I wouldn't dare to have this conversation, as it would lead to some kind of horrible government-imposed punishment.
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
I have lived in Vietnam for 18 months 8 years ago and i am planning to retire there soon. There is already censorship of Facecrack and other social sites, but most of the users get around it by using proxies. The BBC in Vietnamese is also banned and blocked by the parties firewall and again its easy to circumvent for the technically minded. The problem is not necessary the decrees as most of the population south of Hanoi simply see the police and government as a nuisance, its the punishments if you get caught publishing information about the corruption that's rife from the top down. When you get to court you have no defence and you will be punished as the government sees fit. http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=15824 https://www.cpj.org/2013/02/vietnam-detains-blogger-who-covered-corruption.php They recently stated that all Vietnamese must report if they see anyone using the internet in any way that opposes the government, which makes it difficult to know who is watching you, let alone the ISP's reporting your internet usage and the sites you visited, and any activist would not use a public terminal as eyes are everywhere. If they cant arrest you, they can make it very hard for you, we got moved 3 times by the police telling our landlords that we were not allowed to live in the places we rented just because we are legally married lesbians and we choose to live together in Saigon, during the harassment by the police we were detained and questioned by plain clothes police. They threatened to deport me and imprison my Vietnamese wife just because we choose to co-habit, in the end we had to lie to the police saying that we lived in separate houses, just to be able to live there. I think they have since relaxed the homophobic laws and I they say they will allow gay marriage in Vietnam at some point soon, but they will never relax the laws about reporting corruption as they are scared very scared.
http://luckyredfish.com
. . .does this mean the American-based multinationals will halt the offshoring of jobs to that totalitarian paradise?
Oops! Sorry, forgot they LOVE such countries!
Fundamental freedoms? Like the freedom for your personal correspondance to be captured and scrutinized, without your knowledge, as if you were presumed to be guilty, regardless of whether you actually are American or not? That fundamental freedom?
Whether you are forbidden to speak or your speech is watched for unstated transgressions, it amounts to the same infringement. At least the Vietnamese government has provided a warning and some direction as to what is acceptable.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
What next? the Vietnamese then want some old ugly uncle Ho picture on those web site?