If you live in a country where you can stay up to all hours of the evening entertaining yourself with online gaming, consider yourself fortunate, it’s a freedom not enjoyed by people in countries like Vietnam.
Vietnam has implemented an online gaming curfew effectively banning internet gaming in the country from 10 PM to 8 AM. Vietnam ISP’s have until 3 March to comply with the new law or face disciplinary action from the government.
The Vietnam government has resorted to these drastic measures in an effort to curb the internet addiction in the country. But is that the government’s responsibility? What’s next? Is the Vietnam government going to cook dinner and tuck the children into bed at night too?
Seriously, setting a curfew for when people can engage in internet gaming is a violation of basic rights as far as I’m concerned.
If someone wants to engage in online gaming 24 hours a day, seven days a week they should have that freedom. It’s a slippery slope when the government is allowed to control the internet, we saw how that turned out in Egypt. If the government in Vietnam can control gaming, why not social media or email, or mobile phone use? When it does it stop?
Technology is supposed to expand freedoms, and it’s simply not the Vietnamese government’s job to suppress them. It’s a little disheartening to hear that social injustices like this continue to happen in the world in this day in age.
This will probably create a generation of hackers in Vietnam. Children who can’t live without their online gaming and can’t stand being censored will find a way to circumvent the system. I doubt the Vietnam government will have success in keeping the youth from playing online games. And if they do, shame on them. That’s why children have parents.
