NO FACEBOOK FOR YOU

For those who have been wondering why I'm not on Facebook as regularly as normal (which is to say 'daily') it is because I found out the Vietnamese government has blocked it. They won't admit to blocking it. They don't let people they have told to block it discuss it. Apparently, they are worried about people saying bad things about them. Which they did anyway after Facebook had been blocked. Apparently, if you are at all net savvy it is not hard to get around. I tried looking up various suggested methods of unblocking it but I just couldn't get them to work. I tried using the hidemyass.com proxy but then Facebook accused me of not allowing cookies and it wouldn't work. I tried going through google translate as one web page suggested - but Google told me it is already in English. I tried going to several different web pages that claimed 'oh just click here and it works'. They were actually advertisement web pages and didn't work at all. I know someone (or perhaps several someones out there) will suggest a remedy. All I have to say is please test it a couple times before you suggest it. There is nothing that is more irritating than someone who wants to give helpful but untested advice that just ends up wasting my time when I can do that on my own. Also, I have the tech savvy of a chimp and no access to the routers of the guest houses I am staying at. The 'how does it work' pages suggested a 'simple' fix that involved me just adjusting those. Not a good solution if you are on a public network you have zero control over.

If I can't find and implement a working solution it is not the end of the world. I'm just working on staying in Vietnam for one month. According to the information that I've read, only Vietnam and China have turned off Facebook and chances of me getting into China are slim.

For anyone that wants to comment things along the line of 'what about freedom of speech' and 'it's not democratic', please remember that Vietnam is a communist country. If they don't like what you say, then you get to become a 'guest of the state'.