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MEDIA & MARKETING OCTOBER 4, 2010
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In Vietnam, State 'Friends' You
By JAMES HOOKWAY
HANOIThe Internet poses a challenge for authoritarian regimes around the world. But Vietnam's leaders think
they have figured out a new way to tame itby launching their own, Communist-friendly answer to popular
social-networking sites like Facebook.
It's called go.vn, and state-owned Vietnam Multimedia Corp. launched a trial version on revolutionary hero Ho
Chi Minh's birthday, May 19. A full version is due to go up at the end of the year. Many of its features will be
familiar to anybody versed in tagging, poking and defriending: People can post photos, link to friends and ping
messages back and forth online.
The catch is that users have to submit their full names and
government-issued identity numbers before they can access the
site. Security services monitor websites in Vietnam, whose
authoritarian, one-party dictatorship treats dissidents
ruthlessly.
The site marks a shift in tactics for Hanoi's Politburo members,
who have more typically shut down parts of the Web that rubbed
them the wrong way. Over the past year, authorities have jailed
dissident bloggers and tried blocking Facebook Inc.'s flagship
site to stop subversive thoughts from spreading online.
Blogging recently on the site, Vietnam's Minister for
Information and Communications, Le Doan Hop, described it as
a "trustworthy" alternative to foreign sites. "We're ready for clean competition," he wrote, exhorting Vietnam's
teenagers to visit go.vn in search of "culture, values and benefits."
But early articles on the lives of revolutionary hero Ho Chi Minh and a brace of famous generals didn't set the
Internet ablaze. To keep the site from going the way of Vietnam's old, Soviet-inspired five-year plans, its
webmasters are attempting to spice things up.
Working from offices that prominently feature a bust of Uncle Ho, as Vietnam's founding president is fondly
known here, some 400 people with an average age of 26 iron out bugs in the site's software and add content, says
Phan Anh Tuan, vice-director at Vietnam Multimedia's online unit.
The team has added online English tests and several state-approved videogames, including a violent multiplayer
contest featuring a band of militants bent on stopping the spread of global capitalism. The stream of news on the
home page recently included an item on local beauty queens, news of a South Carolina fisherman who caught a
fish that had human-like teeth, and word that British intelligence services once experimented with semen as an
invisible ink.
Aaron Joel Santos/Getty Images for the Wall Street Journal
With its social-networking site, Vietnam aims to attract
youth, such as these students in a Hanoi Internet cafe
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Mr. Hop, the information minister, predicted go.vn will sign up more than 40 million people about half the
country's 85 million peopleby 2015.
But gaining the approval of Vietnam's young and increasingly tech-savvy population won't be easy. Entire streets
in Hanoi are packed with tiny stores where technicians armed with soldering irons and toothpicks break open
Apple Inc.'s iPhones and other devices to let their owners use any phone network they like. Statistics from Google
Inc. show that more searches containing the world "crack"a term closely associated with hacking into protected
softwareoriginated in Vietnam than in any other country.
Some Vietnamese have figured out how to skirt the Facebook ban by using proxy servers or tinkering with their
computer settings. Others have launched online campaigns to boycott local Web sites such as go.vn despite its
ongoing makeover. "Make 'go' go away," one person wrote in an online message.
Many Vietnamese shrug when queried about go.vn. "I didn't even know it existed," says Pham Thanh Cong, a
fourth-year physics student at Hanoi Polytechnic as he waits his turn to play an online shoot-'em-up game at a
street-side Internet caf.
It is users like Mr. Cong that go.vn wants to woo. Vietnam Multimedia's Mr. Tuan says he hopes the site will gain
a mass following among the country's hordes of videogame enthusiasts by offering cheap, easy access to some of
their favorite games. "This is a solid base for us," says Mr. Tuan, who is himself 33 years old.
Vietnam's bid to create a government-friendly Web portal points to its discomfort with the speed at which the
Internet is outflanking heavily censored media like television and newspapers here. Vietnam recorded 26 million
users in Augustup 18% from the same month last year and one of the fastest growth rates in the developing
world.
In March, security engineers at Google and computer security company McAfee Inc. reported they had
discovered malicious software apparently used to spy on dissidents and disable their websites. Vietnam's
government has denied orchestrating any cyberattacks, and didn't respond to requests for comment on the
Facebook ban.
Facebook said at the time that "we would be very disappointed if users in any country were to have trouble
accessing Facebook."
Government officials have described Vietnam's Facebook-killer as the country's biggest online investment yet,
although they won't say exactly how much has been spentor how many people have logged in to have a look.
Mr. Tuan is also hoping to get feedback from some of those users about how to improve the site. But word of
what people really think might trickle through a little slower than he might wish. "There's not been much
response so far," Mr. Tuan says.
Nguyen Anh Thu in Hanoi contributed to this article.
Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@wsj.com
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