photo: schcpune.org

VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Culture and Information will discuss measures to control blogs since many problems associated with blogs have been reported, said an official of the Justice Ministry.

Relevant agencies have received many complaints related to blogs, for example sex blogs, unhealthy information. Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Culture and Information Vu Xuan Thanh also affirmed that there would be a joint-ministry circular issued on the control of blogs.

Currently, all blogs are free in terms of contents, except for some rules set by administrators of blog services and virtual social networks.

The administrator of Star Blog service, which hosts more than 24,000 bloggers and around 63,000 articles, asks its members to follow some rules, for example not use pornographic photos or images and not post reactionary or obscene articles, otherwise the accounts are locked immediately.

“We read all articles posted on blogs to control the contents,” said Cao Manh Tuan, managing director of Star Blog.

At Vietspace.net.vn, a social network that is running on a trial basis and has around 67,000 members and 150-200 new members each day, administrators also set some rules, such as immediately deleting articles that are not suitable to Vietnamese customs and violate laws of Vietnam. This network has members and tools to control the contents of articles posted on the website.

“It is very good to have the management of state agencies. That’s Internet security and the state needs to strictly control it,” said Tran Hung Cuong, Director of Vietspace.

Star Blog’s Cao Manh Tuan also supports state management of blogs and social networks and he said he was willing to help related agencies in compiling rules.

“When representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Information come to survey the opinions of bloggers, we are ready to help,” he said.

“Blogs are private stories in the views of individuals. Vietnam is opening its door for integration so personal opinions deserve to be expressed. However we have institute some form of control to prevent some bloggers from intentionally breaking moral and cultural rules,” he added.

However, many bloggers and IT experts have said that the nature of the online diary will be affected if law makers don’t carefully consult the opinions of bloggers.

As a network security expert, the Director of the Bach Khoa University Network Security Centre, Nguyen Tu Quang, said that each blog was a website owned by a person so the varieties of blogs was multiform. If a blogger violates the rules, technical measures may be used to prevent access to this blog and even track down the owner of the blog. However, as the number of blogs is very large and the advertising of blogs is mainly via direct channels like emails, messages, so technical measures are not enough.

The Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Culture and Information also admitted that the lock of black blogs was not the most effective measure so the best way was improving Internet users’ awareness.

In Malaysia, the government plans to ask bloggers to make public their identities to avoid extreme comments on online diaries. Meanwhile, China is also compiling laws to control blogs.

(Source: VNE)