VietNamNet Bridge – A circular controlling blogs is scheduled for issuance in December 2008. A senior official from the Ministry of Information and Communications stated that the circular would not address the personal contents of blogs, only give guidance to bloggers.

Blog development to be facilitated: Deputy Minister

Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Do Quy Doan on November 27 talked with the media about the circular on management of blogs, which is attracting attention from the local and foreign publics.

He said the circular doesn’t aim to solve every issue of blogs, but to give guidance and create a legal foundation, as well as deal with ideological, social and foreign issues related to blogs.

Doan said the circular would not intervene in blogger’s personal issues. It will only define the conception of blog in order to set the scope of management within that conception.

The circular will identify what contents are encouraged to be placed in blogs and what bloggers should avoid including; it will not lay out administrative principles for the management of blogs.

According to Doan, the major element differentiating blogs from other kinds of information is its personal identity. Blogs don’t represent any organisation or release orthodox information.

He also said that the circular would not set sanctions but set a frame so bloggers know understand the scope of their operations. There will be other documents that decree specific punishments for violations.

“Some say that blogs are personal diaries. If they are personal diaries, they should be kept for their authors, or their friends or relatives. If they are opened for the public, they are not personal diaries anymore, but become electronic information pages. So they have to obey regulations like electronic information pages,” Doan said.

However, at a meeting to discuss the draft circular on blogs held on Thursday in Hanoi, many local blog service providers said they are suffering discrimination.

They said there is inequality in managing local and foreign blog service providers. Some foreign websites offer blog services in Vietnam and earn profit in Vietnam but they are not controlled by Vietnamese laws, but international conventions. This situation causes difficulties for Vietnamese companies because they have to obey many regulations.

Nguyen Hoang Tuan Anh, Director of VinaGame, a blog service provider in Vietnam, said up to 85% of Vietnamese blogs are based on foreign websites, particularly Yahoo.

The draft circular sets many rules for local blog service providers but loosens regulations on providers which have overseas servers but provide services in Vietnam like Yahoo, Google, etc. Tuan Anh said if the circular is not amended, local companies may just begin using overseas servers.

Nguyen Ngoc Hung, a representative of a social network, tamtay.vn, warned that if the Ministry of Information and Communications doesn’t set orientations for local social networks, Vietnamese users may go to other networks which have opener environments and this may harm local service providers.

According to Hung, the nature of the blog is reporting news like electronic pages so it is necessary to compile a general circular on releasing information on the Internet and have this circular cover both electronic information pages and blogs.

(Source: Tien Phong, VNE)