Saigon Embraces the Web
Just five months after we told you about Vietnam's internal
struggle over permitting Internet access
, the country's government licensed its first four ISPs:
Vietnam Data Transmission Company, Saigon Postel Corporation,
Finance Promoting and Technology Company, and the Institute of
Information Technology.
There is, however, one caveat: the companies are state sponsored
and subject to government oversight. Vietnamese officials are
using filtering software to block objectionable sites and will be
on the lookout for online dissidents and traffickers of
culturally unacceptable material that might "undermine national
unity." Furthermore, companies must officially register all user
names. The restrictive Net policy is hardly a surprise, given
that last March the politburo issued a directive urging party
elements to "constantly check and control the use of the
Internet."
"As in a lot of communist countries, the laws are rather vague,"
says William Turley, a professor of political science at Southern
Illinois University. "The language is ambiguous enough that
whoever is monitoring the Internet can do something nasty to you
if they want to." In the past, Vietnam has treated dissidents
harshly, Turley adds, so surfers had best beware.
Vietnamese bureaucrats are more sanguine than the critics. "A lot
of friends of mine are using the Internet," says Le Dzung, press
officer for the Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in
Washington, DC. He adds that the government should have no
problem ensuring the purity of whatever content is accessed.
"They will do their best to perform their duty," he says of the
Internet censors.
The good news is that those censors have failed to interfere with
the use of email. The government has found it impractical to
monitor the content of email messages, particularly given the
growing volume, says David Marr, professor at Australian National
University's School of Pacific and Asian Studies. Meanwhile,
access to email continues to grow now that a handful of
restaurants and private computer stores in Saigon offer
dirt-cheap deals to send or retrieve messages.
Outside observers doubt that there will be widespread Internet
access for many months, citing high prices, a dearth of modems,
and limited bandwidth. Presently, there are approximately 2 phone
lines for every 100 people in Vietnam. The government has said it
wants 6 percent of its citizens to have a phone line by 2000, but
that's nothing compared with nearby Malaysia (30 percent) or Hong
Kong (60 percent). According to The Vietnam Business Journal, the
potential market today for Internet access is no more than 10,000
Vietnamese. That's not much for a nation of 75 million, but it's
a start.
One need look no further than the Hanoi post office for proof
that the Big Brother days of Vietnam are waning. There, a large
banner spread across the entrance reads, "Internet Vietnam" - an
advertisement for the Saigon Postel Corporation's latest service,
but also a symbolic message of newfound tolerance.
By Matt Richtel -The Wire magazine group, April 6, 1998.
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