Vietnam struggles with online pornography
The vast expanse of cyberspace and a growing online audience in Vietnam spells trouble for police efforts to control pornography websites, with huge databases of pictures, videos, and links to the sex trade.
Many sex sites have been disguised as adult-only forums but turn out to be “marketplaces” for prostitutes and sex toys.
There has been rampant posting of live videos of “love affairs” with prostitutes and even girls who were cheated by their boyfriends using camera cell phones.
Many paid membership forums of that kind offer door-to-door delivery of sex toys.
A series of sex sites with attractive domain names are accessible to young net users who surf the Internet without parental control.
Even many net cafés in HCMC guide clients to sex websites to satisfy the wide variety of demands.
An emerging new entrepreneurial trade now sees sources of pictures and videos from websites copied onto CDs for sale.
Running in cyberspace
Hunting and destroying web sex sites is a tough job for Vietnamese police as cyberspace is not the real world, and many operators live abroad.
Despite police initiatives to crack down on the sex industry, many dead sex web sites have been resurrected under new domain names, with an email keeping clients ‘in touch’.
With website owners on the run to different domains at the first sign of trouble, police control is all but impossible, even after successfully closing down two porn sites recently.
According to police, they “acted” as a paid member to download porn from a webpage of founder Tran Minh Quang, who lives in the US. Quang has “set up” an agent network in Vietnam to promote his website.
With one of the two prohibited websites already re-opened under a new name, police in Vietnam may soon realize that controlling Vietnam’s oft chaotic motorbike traffic is nothing compared to controlling that in cyberspace.
By Vo Khoi & Thanh Trung - Thanh Nien - July 18, 2005.
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