‘Communist Facebook’ gets a shrug from Vietnamese

The Vietnamese have given a lukewarm reception to the latest internet start up – a social networking site with a difference: it has been created and is managed by the country's communist government.

Go.vn is intended as a Facebook substitute for happy communist youth and is being hailed as a sign that the country's old guard is rattled by the rise and rise of new media in Vietnam, which recorded an 18 per cent year-on-year rise in web users in August, the fastest rate of growth in the developing world.

In the previous 12 months, the Vietnamese government has attempted to block local access to the real Facebook and arrested 'dissident' bloggers. But the latest strategy seems to be: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Made-up names are not an option: anyone who wants to sign up to Go.vn, needs to provide a full name and valid citizen's identity number to the controlling authorities. Once online, users can post photos, send messages and choose online comrades.

Sadly for the apparatchiks, early indications after the trial version
of the site launched in May were that young Vietnamese preferred Mark Zuckerberg's decadent Western original – even though it offers fewer improving essays on revolutionary workers' hero Ho Chi Minh.

The government response has been to attempt to sex up the site
somewhat. It now boasts a violent online game centred around a group of militants attempting to halt the global spread of capitalism.

Also new are online English exams and a news stream. But whether it will be enough to bring the youth back to their roots remains to be seen. ·