Websites with pornographic content have been inaccessible from Vietnam for days as a number of mobile network and Internet service providers have allegedly blocked access to the “unhealthy” sites.
Many people using mobile network and Internet services provided by Viettel said that they have been unable to access several porn sites, including xvi**** and porn***, from November 15, Zing reported.
The issue persisted even after switching devices and browsers, the news site said.
Such Internet users reported having been able to log on to the sites before.
“I made several attempts to enter those sites, but could not get through,” a Viettel mobile network subscriber in Ho Chi Minh City, told Tuoi Tre News.
Users of FPT Telecom have also faced the same issue since November 18, according to Zing.
Another VNPT network subscriber in Ho Chi Minh City also confirmed to the same connection problem to Tuoi Tre News.
Viettel, FPT, and VNPT are major telecommunications enterprises in Vietnam, together making up more than 95 percent of the country’s telecoms market, according to a report by KB Securities Vietnam JSC, the Vietnamese business of South Korea’s KB Securities.
A representative of FPT Telecom gave Zing a generic response, neither denying nor admitting that they had blocked the adult sites when contacted by the news site.
A communications representative of Viettel told Zing that the military-run telecoms group has not interfered with users’ connection or taken any measure to prevent them from accessing the websites.
However, a Viettel customer service employee gave contradictory information when asked by Zing.
“According to information from the Ministry of Information and Communications, Viettel has begun blocking websites with unhealthy content,” the employee wrote in an online conversation via Facebook’s instant messaging app Messenger.
“Currently, there is no information about unblocking these websites.”
The cause of the situation has yet to be determined while many Internet users said that porn websites were still inaccessible as of Thursday afternoon.
Source: Tuoitre