We are fortunate enough that we live in a place where we (as citizens) would never let our government do this; it also helps that we are guaranteed this right by the 1st Amendment. Of 90 million citizens in Vietnam, 1/3 of whom use the internet, 20 million of them have Facebook accounts. I'm not sure what the government could do if all 20 million people spoke out against the government at once.
This kind of reminds me of Egypt when the social media was taken away and the people took to the streets where a revolution occurred. I just wonder how long the Vietnamese people or world leaders will allow this kind of treatment to continue. In the digital age, it is not good for a country to be known as an enemy if the internet, just as Vietnam is. This kind of treatment will only last for so long before 20+ million people take to the streets.
It makes you wonder how people live in countries like Vietnam, where the government fully controls everything. Egypt had the right idea with revolting against government regulation. Individuals have the right to speak their mind. In our country, where we have that right, what would you believe to happen if it was taken away abruptly? I believe that free speech is slowly dying in certain areas of the media in our country, unfortunately, but we still have a dominant free-speech population.
ReplyDeleteI believe people need to realize, if they all have the same view, that they are bigger than the government. Just like you said, what can the government do if 20 million people rebelled against their laws? It wouldn’t be pretty.