- News>
- Internet & Social Media
Internet harmful for young people of Vietnam
Hanoi, Oct 14: Internet use in Vietnam is negatively affecting the health and education of young people and encourages truancy, state-run said media Monday.
Hanoi, Oct 14: Internet use in Vietnam is negatively affecting the health and education of young people and encourages truancy, state-run said media Monday.
Many pupils and students skip school in favor of using the
internet for hours, which costs them money and their health.
A report by the ministry for culture and information said that there are around 4,000 internet cafes in Vietnam, used mainly by 13 to 25-year-olds, reported Thanh Nien (young people) newspaper.
Of the users, 5 per cent use internet cafes to view pornography, 5 per cent use them to look up information, 10 per cent use them to send e-mails, 10 per cent use them to play games and 70 per cent use the cafes to join chat rooms, said the newspaper.
Access to hundreds of websites in Vietnam is prevented by government-operated firewalls.
In July, plans were announced to levy heavy fines against cafe owners who allowed clients to view pornographic, anti-communist sites, or anything deemed by the communist government as ''harmful to the nation.''
At least three ''cyber dissidents'' have been detained in 2002, according to press-freedom organizations.
Dr. Pham Hong Son was jailed in March after translating an article titled ''what is democracy'' from a US state department website. He had also forwarded one of his own internet articles titled ''some good signs for democracy in Vietnam'' to Vietnamese newspapers.
Computer science teacher Le Chi Quang was arrested at a Hanoi internet cafe on February 21 after publishing a text on a website saying the government gave too much away to China in a 2001 border agreement. Bureau Report
A report by the ministry for culture and information said that there are around 4,000 internet cafes in Vietnam, used mainly by 13 to 25-year-olds, reported Thanh Nien (young people) newspaper.
Of the users, 5 per cent use internet cafes to view pornography, 5 per cent use them to look up information, 10 per cent use them to send e-mails, 10 per cent use them to play games and 70 per cent use the cafes to join chat rooms, said the newspaper.
Access to hundreds of websites in Vietnam is prevented by government-operated firewalls.
In July, plans were announced to levy heavy fines against cafe owners who allowed clients to view pornographic, anti-communist sites, or anything deemed by the communist government as ''harmful to the nation.''
At least three ''cyber dissidents'' have been detained in 2002, according to press-freedom organizations.
Dr. Pham Hong Son was jailed in March after translating an article titled ''what is democracy'' from a US state department website. He had also forwarded one of his own internet articles titled ''some good signs for democracy in Vietnam'' to Vietnamese newspapers.
Computer science teacher Le Chi Quang was arrested at a Hanoi internet cafe on February 21 after publishing a text on a website saying the government gave too much away to China in a 2001 border agreement. Bureau Report