According to the Thanh Nien Daily, The Vietnamese government has announced new regulations over Internet access which will check the identity of all cyber-café users and curb child-admission. Now only people over 14 years of age are allowed to go online at cyber-cafés, and all users have to carry identity cards, according to the new rules.
This is really sad. I spent a week in Vietnam last month and just loved it. The country is beautiful and the people delightful. The juxtaposition of the dozens of Internet cafe's with stores selling local produce and hand-wound motors was facinating.
Despite the socialist rhetoric that infused our conversations with locals, we could see that they are really ambitious about joining the WTO and normalizing relations with the West generally. Regulations such as this will absolutely dilute that progress. These cafes were filled with kids all day and until late at night. Most were playing games and IMing friends, but some were cruising the web and reading about the world beyond their neighborhoods. I feel the same way about censorship in Vietnam as I feel about it in China. As long as these governments (with their corporate allies) continue to impose speech and access restrictions on their populations, they will never be able to compete with free nations. All the other stuff is irrelevant.