At this point China blocks a lot from its people on the internet while Vietnamese people in internet cafes and at home can even freely surf Freerepublic. While Vietnam is far from perfect, the people do have much more freedom of information than do the chinese people.
Vietnam DOES CENSOR a lot of websites. They just haven't gotten as good as the Chinese govt has. See this site
http://www.opennet.net/studies/vietnam/. Quote: "The Socialist Republic of Vietnam regulates access to the Internet by its citizens extensively, through both technical and legal means. This study by the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) finds that the Vietnamese state attempts to block citizens from accessing political and religious material deemed to be subversive along various axes."
While China may be blocking some internet access, the sheer number of Chinese with the means to the internet and foreign media outweighs any attempt to block information. Basically the information is available for anyone who is seeking. There are a lot more internet users per capita in China than in Vietnam.
I dissagree with you. I have friends online in both China and Vietnam (have been friends since 2000) and many sites I share with those in China they cannot open while those in Vietnam never have a problem opening any websites I send including anti-communist articles in Freerepublic, Newsmax, Foxnews...there has been nothing my friends in Hanoi and Saigon have not been able to open. China is a different story.
Text Messaging to and from Vietnam is never banned while in China they are recently clamping down on Text messaging not only international SMS but also domestic ones.
I dont need to open your link because I know from experience what is and what is not allowed in Vietnam. I not only have friends there but also spent time in Vietnam just this year.
Freerepublic is not what I consider a communist friendly website yet it's accessible in Vietnam.
Where improvement is needed in Vietnam is the right to publically denounce their own government. That is what they cannot do. Their situation is about the same as that of today's Venezuelan people under Chavez.