Vietnamese Govt Watchdog to Regulate Blogs

Published: October 3, 2008

The Vietnamese government announced that it created an agency to act as a watchdog in the regulation of blogs within Vietnam. With nearly 1.1 million blogs just inside Vietnam, I am curious to see how this agency, known as the Administration Agency for Radio, Television and Electronics Information (AARTE), will be able to regulate the large number of weblogs in this country. The article mentions that blogs located outside of Vietnam are beyond the current regulation but from past experience, these were the blogs the Vietnamese government wanted to focus on.

Here lies the problem for AARTE. If Vietnamese Bloggers know the government will not regulate blogs outside of Vietnam, would they not naturally create a blog on Yahoo 360 or Google Blogger? That's what all Western Expats do to avoid the laws here in Vietnam. SaigonNezumi.com is located in the US, in Chicago to be exact.

Thus, if AARTE cannot control blogs outside of Vietnam under the current regulation, will they have the authority to block or filter out blogs they deem unacceptable? Hard to say but I think this will be a tough task for this agency.

I do agree that web is more open in Vietnam. Geocities, a banned site a year ago, is now available again. Geocities contains a large number of anti-Vietnamese government websites.

I am curious to see how this regulation will pan out. Even though my blog is located outside of Vietnam, will AARTE eventually ask the Saigon Bloggers to license our blogs in this country? Who knows, lets just wait and see what happens.