(SEAPA/IFEX) – The following is a SEAPA press release: Vietnam filtering, monitoring Internet more, says study The Open Net Initiative (ONI), in a recently released study on Vietnam, is reporting an increase in Internet censorship in the country. The research finds that Vietnamese officials are particularly bent on filtering content that questions the country’s one-party […]
(SEAPA/IFEX) – The following is a SEAPA press release:
Vietnam filtering, monitoring Internet more, says study
The Open Net Initiative (ONI), in a recently released study on Vietnam, is reporting an increase in Internet censorship in the country.
The research finds that Vietnamese officials are particularly bent on filtering content that questions the country’s one-party system.
ONI also says that, apparently paying close attention to China’s practices, Vietnam’s technical sophistication and effectiveness with respect to its capacity to control Internet content is “increasing with time”.
It says, “Similar to China, Vietnam has taken a multi-layered approach to controlling the Internet; Vietnam applies technical controls, the law, and education to restrict its citizens’ access to and use of information. Vietnam is carrying out this filtering with a notable lack of transparency – while Vietnam claims its blocking efforts are aimed at safeguarding the country against obscene or sexually explicit content, most of its filtering efforts target sites with politically or religiously sensitive material that could undermine Vietnam’s one-party system.”
ONI predicts that Vietnam’s Internet infrastructure and market are dynamic and fast-changing, but it seems inescapable that the state’s online information control will deepen and grow.
ONI is a collaboration between the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, the Advanced Network Research Group at the Cambridge Security Programme at Cambridge University, and the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. It has compiled a series of reports detailing efforts to control Internet content around the world.
The complete report may be accessed at: http://www.opennet.net/vietnam
