Researchers expose Vietnamese Internet filtering system

An OpenNet Initiative report says that the government is not just blocking pornography

By Tita Tantipinichwong
AsiaMedia Staff Writer

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

American and Canadian researchers say that Vietnam's increasingly advanced Internet censors frequently block political sites, rather than the pornographic or sexually explicit content the government claims to censor.

The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) tested web access remotely and found that sites about certain sensitive topics are inaccessible to surfers in Vietnam. Blocked URLs include the websites for the Free Vietnam Alliance and the Movement To Unite the People and Build Democracy. Webmasters of other sites produced in Vietnam, such as one that posted information about a 2004 uprising of Montagnards, a minority Christian group, are forced to remove content.

ONI's research indicates that Vietnam uses a multi-faceted Internet filtering system that includes technical controls, legal intimidation and educational restrictions to block websites, blogs, emails and public discussion forums.

While government officials have said that their aim is to block sexually explicit sites, ONI reports that the state is actually sensitive to issues such as exposés of corruption, ethnic unrests and political opposition, including criticisms of state leaders or promotions of democracy. Pornography and other obscene content is "nominally a concern for state regulators," says the report; the head of a provincial Post and Telematics Office says that over 90 percent of Vietnamese youth have accessed sexually explicit sites. The state also focuses its efforts on blocking Vietnamese-language content. English sites are blocked to a lesser degree.

The government takes advantage of the fact that an overwhelming majority of citizens access the Internet publicly through cybercafés. By law, cybercafés are required to sign contracts with Internet service providers (ISPs), which are in turn regulated by the Vietnam Internet Center (VNNIC). In August 2004, the Ministry of Culture and Information (MCI) also issued instructions to all cybercafés to track every website their customers visited and record how much time each user spent online, in addition to noting credit card or ID numbers of customers who visited inappropriate sites.

ONI researchers tested two Internet service providers, FPT and VNPT. Although both licensed ISPs are individually and separately run companies, they are nevertheless entirely or partially state-owned enterprises. Findings show that although FPT and VNPT use different filtering methods, both concentrate on blocking websites that contain politically or religiously taboo content.

Results also indicate inconsistencies in Vietnam's filtering system. ONI says that Vietnam likely compiles lists of sites to block individually, rather than employing a commercial software firm. "A common trait of individually-created block lists," says the report," is that they fail to filter all of the ways by which users can access a single site." For example, while the site www.lenduong.net is blocked, lenduong.net is accessible.

John Palfrey, Executive Director of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, an ONI collaborating institution, says that that these kinds of inconsistencies are inherent in every filtering system around the world.

Palfrey says there are striking similarities between Vietnamese and Chinese Internet censorship. In addition to the similar routes each country’s web traffic takes, the Vietnamese system operates on multiple levels, not just filtering a single entry point, which is also "the hallmark of the Chinese regime," he says.

For the media, Internet restrictions can hinder the kind of news that can be published online. Already strictly controlled by the Vietnamese state, the press is becoming increasingly scrutinized. According to ONI, the MCI "meets with journalists to instruct them on covering stories to ensure that the media follow the dictates of the state." A new Decree on Cultural and Information Activities effective July 2006, will punish journalists for "publishing stories that employ anonymous sources, disseminating reactionary ideology" and require journalists to "submit articles for review" before they can go into print.

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam, like many Southeast Asian countries, "tries to leverage the Internet to provide economic development and benefit, while simultaneously struggling to limit access to content that might destabilize the Communist state," reports ONI.

ONI is a collaborative partnership of Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford and the University of Toronto that examines states' censorship of the Internet. The Vietnam study was released on Aug. 9 and is available on the ONI website. Other countries on ONI's watchlist currently include Thailand, Pakistan, and Nepal in Asia.

Date Posted: 8/29/2006