Vietnam launches 'official' web page for PM after fake blog

Aug 19, 2007, 11:27 GMT

Hanoi - Vietnam's communist government announced an 'official and sole' online news page for Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung over the weekend, days after several fake weblogs emerged purporting to be the private musing of top Communist officials.

According to the government's official website, the dedicated news page for the prime minister, which is part of the official government webpage, is necessary 'to meet the demand of readers inside and outside the country.'

The government announcement did not mention the fake blogs specifically, but stressed that the official page would feature only news and photos of the prime minister - not personal messages.

'Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung does not have any other private website or blog, except the official page stated above,' the government website added.

Vietnamese authorities said last week they were investigating a number of fake weblogs purporting to be the thoughts and messages of top Communist Party and government officials.

The faux blog for 'Nguyen Tan Dung' had posted dozens of entries since the blog was set up July 29 - mostly extolling the virtues of the Communist Party and even writing a short poem urging loyalty to the late communist independence leader Ho Chi Minh.

However, the blog was confirmed as a fake - and appeared to originate from the eastern United States or Canada, according to timestamps on the postings.

Other blogs - supposedly written by the Communist Party's general secretary, Nong Duc Manh, and official head of state President Nguyen Minh Triet - feature veiled criticisms of one-party rule and state censorship.

The government administrative office is investigating who might be behind the fakes, which are all registered on the blog-hosting site of Yahoo!

Opponents of the government overseas and in Vietnam have been peppering email inboxes for the past year with mass e-mails critical of the Communist Party and calling for democratic elections.

It was unclear, however, whether opponents of the government were responsible for the imposter blogs or whether they were simply pranks.

Vietnam has an estimated 3 million bloggers, and the government has been talking about how to better control content, which is mostly based on foreign hosting sites.

The Communist Party has been taking pains to reach out to a young and newly internet-savvy population recently, with both Dung and Triet hosting online chats viewed by at least 1 million people.

At the same time, though, the government has cracked down on open dissent, sentencing nearly a dozen dissidents to prison this year for 'spreading propaganda against the Socialist Republic.'