The BBC’s Kate McGeown has this well-done piece on how the Vietnamese government is embracing the Internet and placing few restrictions on its citizens’ web-related activities, or at least far fewer restrictions than another nearby Communist country, China. Internet use is rapidly growing in Vietnam, with users free to read foreign newspaper web sites and the government actively pushing Internet access out to post offices and community centers throughout the country.
Despite progress, the Vietnamese government still tries to crack down on the publication of what it considers dissident material.
This new freedom is something the government is struggling to come to terms with, because while it is keen to be an outward-looking regime, it remains a one-party state that does not tolerate opposing views.
While the authorities appear to have sacrificed a certain amount of control over the general public’s internet habits, it is a very different story for the few people who openly criticise the regime.
But authorities are obviously not cracking down too hard because McGeown paints a picture of technology trumping authoritarianism.
Even if the authorities manage to block their websites and forums inside Vietnam, the content they produce will still reach the outside world.
The government has been trying various ways to restrict dissidents’ use of the internet, particularly since an online anti-government petition was published earlier this year, which many people signed.
But as is often the case, the authorities’ efforts at control are not keeping pace with advances in technology.
Nguyen Van Dai said dissidents were increasingly using voice over internet protocol providers, such as Skype or Yahoo Messenger, instead of email, because it is much more difficult to trace.
Vietnam stands in stark contrast to China, which gets spookier by the minute. Yesterday the Chinese Ministry of Culture slapped limits on Internet music, ruling that imported music must be distributed by “legal units” or organizations and companies approved by the government.
The Ministry also banned the establishment of foreign-funded network [i.e. Internet or mobile-phone distributed] entertainment firms. On top of that, the government has imposed heavy controls on the gaming business out of fear that some games might feature forbidden religious or political material. All game distributors must obtain approval to release new games and submit monthly monitoring reports attesting to the lack of forbidden content in their games.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 11:39 PM | Print | Comments (1)The FCC held a field hearing yesterday in Nashville, TN (Commissioner Deborah Tate’s hometown) and got an earful from a line-up of country star witnesses about the increasing consolidation of ownership in the media businesses. (Video of the hearing is here.)
George Jones, Porter Wagoner and Dobie Gray (yes, the Dobie Gray of “Drift Away” and “In Crowd” fame who must have been a cross-over hit before that term was even coined) told the commissioners that it’s getting harder for the twangy sounds of country music to penetrate the airwaves as big companies keep gobbling up local market radio stations.
“The days of an artist receiving regional airplay or breaking as a new act on radio are gone, and you are now considering making the situation even worse by letting some broadcast dynasties become even bigger broadcasting dynasties,” Wagoner told the commissioners.
John Rich of the country group Big and Rich even decried the consolidation as “anti-American” because, surprise, surprise, country music radio stations have disappeared from New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. (Um, maybe the free market laws of supply and demand, and not ownership consolidation, have caused these cities to be free of country music radio stations.)
“To me it’s one of the most anti-American things I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said.
The putative purpose of the hearing was to look at the re-implementation of new ownership rules that would expand how many broadcasting outlets a single company can own. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is in favor of relaxing ownership requirements, while the two Democratic commissioners, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, are opposed. Both Copps and Adelstein got rounds of applause for their stances during the hearing yesterday, which was held at Belmont University’s Massey Performance Center.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:06 AM | Print | Comments (0)
Cable TV tech VOD tech supplier Gotuit is making a bold jump into Internet-based broadband content with a new video indexing tool that allows users to tag or index specific parts of videos uploaded online. Called Scenemaker, the tool lets users click on a Gotuit-supplied toolbar when viewing a video, which then loads the video into the Scenemaker website.
Once the video is in Scenemaker, a user can flag or tag or label a particular part of the video and then email a link to friends or post the link on the Internet. The video isn’t altered in any way — the tags or links are stored on Gotuit’s servers. And the service is free.
Scenemaker currently works only with YouTube or MetaCafe videos (and presumably it’s own video sharing portal called GotuitTV, although Scenemaker lists only YouTube and MetaCafe), but it’s only a matter of time before other video-sharing sites are covered by the tool. Although most web videos are short enough so that few tags or indices are needed, some can meander for quite a while. It’s kind of cool to be able to cut to the chase when directing others to look at videos.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 6:14 AM | Print | Comments (0)
CNET’s Declan McCullagh and Anne Broache have this good round-up of legislation that the recently adjourned 109th Congress failed to pass. Aside from the pretexting bill, known as the Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act, pushed through at the 11th hour (and I don’t really consider this to be a tech bill as much as a privacy bill), Internet gambling bill, and the Child Protection and Safety Act, the past Congress, and the last Congress of the 12-year Republican majority, failed to pass much in the way of legislation affecting the tech, Internet or telecom businesses.
Among the legislative topics that had momentum but went nowhere were
1. H1-B Visas, which would have relaxed limits on the guest workers that can be employed, which could have given tech companies a skilled talent hiring boost
2. Web censorship and filtering (and we’re all probably better off that legislative proposals in these areas fizzled)
3. Net neutrality, or more specifically telecom reform legislation that got bogged down by the fight over net neutrality
4. copyright and digital rights management and
5. R&D Tax Credits.
In truth, very few bills make it through both houses in any given congressional session, so this list of legislative flops is not surprising. However, the one bill that stood the greatest chance of passage stands as a pretty clear failure: the telecom reform bill championed by the telcos, passed by the House and almost passed by the Senate. Despite the two years and tens of millions spent by the telcos alone to get this piece of legislation through, it couldn’t make it pass the finish line, even with the over-the-top support of a powerful sponsor, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK).
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 5:00 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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