British Embassy persists with Facebook launch in Vietnam despite site block
Posted: January 22, 2010 Filed under: Uncategorized 12 Comments »This is rather odd but this has appeared on the British Embassy website:
The official Facebook page of the British Embassy Hanoi is now launched. It is named ukinvietnam. With Facebook we are now having one more digital interactive platform to connect with internet users and UK-related information seekers.
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News on our diplomatic activities, visa issues, scholarships, employment opportunities at the embassy or our sister organisations, interesting educational and cultural events by British Council will be published on our Facebook page. Furthermore, we aim at enhancing our public engagement taking advantage of various useful Facebook applications.
“I am very happy with our brand new Facebook page; I hope we’ll get more and more friends on this very useful social network. Facebook has more than 1 million users in Vietnam and I believe it will get only more. High speed, easy to use, excellent interactivity, and friendly, all of these make Facebook an ideal space for sharing and connecting,” says British Ambassador to Vietnam, Mr. Mark Kent.
Which is all well and good except Facebook is essentially banned/blocked in Vietnam. Although, to date, there’s been no absolute confirmation of this, there have been enough hints dropped and the inability to access Facebook has, at times, been across all internet service providers.
So is the launching of the Facebook site:
i. An acknowledgement that so many people are evading the blockage that they might as well launch anyway
ii. A calculated dig at the Vietnamese authorities
iii. Ignorance by the marketing people (despite ambassador Mark Kent having made statements regarding Facebook in the past)
But what is strange is that there is virtually no mention of the ban in the launch information.
Except this rather odd line:
Having troubles accessing Facebook? No worries. Just Google search again using a Vietnamese key phrase: Lam sao truy cap Facebook?, a number of as-easy-as-a-pie tips will be ready for you to use.
Which is just strange on so many levels. I am assuming that this is referring to get-arounds for the ban. But why give you a Vietnamese phrase to Google in an English language translation? Google that and your answers will be in Vietnamese.
And “easy-as-pie”? Is that a “ya-boo-sucks your-ban-doesn’t-work” dig?
And why tell you to Google? Were the British Embassy happy enough to have a dig with the launch of their own Facebook site but not quite brave enough to give their own advice on how to avoid the site being blocked?
Steve – knowing people who are “familiar with the embassy’s thinking” – I’m pretty sure that the answer is ii. – this is a calculated if mild dig at the Vietnamese Facebook ban.
The UK embassy, like other Western embassies in Hanoi, is pretty unhappy about the clampdown on free speech that has seemigly gathered pace over the last 12 months or so.
If you look back at Mark Kent’s blog, you’ll see that he’s done a number of other posts that are critical of the Vietnamese govt in a rather roundabout way. E.g. this post about education, which is clearly critical of the uncritical thinking promoted by many Vietnamese universities:
http://ukinvietnam.fco.gov.uk/en/newsroom/?view=News&id=20865321
There was also this hint of disatisfaction on the Facebook ban back in December: http://ukinvietnam.fco.gov.uk/en/newsroom/?view=News&id=21359282
This is what the Foreign Office likes to call Digital Diplomacy and, in case my tone is not clear, I say that without sneering.
Dear our man in hanoi,
here’s how I see it. I didn’t write the press release and I wouldn’t read too much into its wording.
Facebook is a useful tool which everyone should have access to. There have been access difficulties, so we have suggested ways to get around. Try Freegate proxy for example. Facebook lite doesn’t have the same access difficulties it seems. In practice I think most people who accessed Facebook before are able to do so now. Our FB page has over 180 fans in the couirse of this week and we hope it can provide useful info about the UK and our cooperation with Vietnam.
If you want more on all this, read my interview with BBC Vietnamese yesterday (also linked on ukinvietnam page). It’s in Vietnamese, but Google translate gives a fair gist.
Best regards
our other man in hanoi
PS I have mentioned some of this, including Freegate, in my blog.
http://www.blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/kent
[...] page (ukinvietnam), but this may not be the best way to reach the people, according to blogger Our Man in Hanoi. Leave a Comment No Comments Yet so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments on this post. [...]
Thanks to both Out Men in Hanoi I’m now happily facebooking again. Good work chaps.
Um, that should be OUR men.
Thanks for mentioning this. When crafting Public Diplomacy it’s important to make sure that the medium is appropriate for the audience, and given the Facebook ban in Vietnam, it’s a wonder why the UK Embassy chose this avenue. This brings up an important question, though: what’s the best way to take advantage of social media in a tightly controlled country?
@ Ren . We’re always open to new suggestions for public diplomacy. We’d be happy to hear yours!
@ Mark Kent. I’ll be interning this summer with the Department of State at the Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. I’d love to visit the Embassy for a chat- if you have time.
@ Ren. Sure – drop me an email (mark.kent@fco.gov.uk) when you get here
[...] large ad referencing Facebook. That’s Facebook that is blocked in Vietnam. On the outside of a Hanoi police [...]
I was wondering why FB was all wonky when I was there! A fellow traveler gave me similar advice of how to get around it. Sometimes, it worked; sometimes it was a pain. That would also account for the reason why my the FB statuses from my iPod Touch didn’t update also.
Ironically, when I was in HCMC, there was a huge splashy mural sign over the side of a plaza, selling a phone that did FB social networking. Thanks for the article!