Many hardcore gamers have a reputation of playing video games on their consoles till very late in the night or into the early hours of the morning. However, the government of Vietnam doesn’t seem to be very sympathetic with such gamers as it has asked all the major internet service providers of the country to block the users form accessing video games online from 10 in the night to 8 in the morning every day starting from today. The reason that the officials of the government have given for this ban being imposed is to control the very harmful side effects that video games have on the young population of the country.
Approximately 23 million people of the country use the internet regularly. This comprises of almost 26 per cent of the nation’s population and a large number of people are expected to be affected by this ruling. The Ministry of Information and Communication has given the internet service providers to comply with its guidelines and cut of the access latest by March 3. As stated by Le Nam Thang, the Deputy Minister of the ministry, a strict vigil will be kept on the service providers to comply with these orders by the provincial departments of information and communication and the licenses of the organizations who fail to follow the mandate will be cancelled.
This is the latest of the government’s moves to protect the youngsters of the nation from the ills of the internet. It began last September, when the government reduced the amount of access to the internet the service providers had during night in an attempt to tackle the “problem” of late night gaming. Mr.Thang also said that the authorities tried several other methods to achieve this but they did not provide satisfactory results. There has been a protest against these measures from the online gaming service providers of the country.
