Did Twitter just get blocked in Vietnam?

It all may be a bit early to say, but some users, including myself, have been experiencing some difficulty accessing Twitter in Vietnam. A mild DNS block, which surfaced a few days ago appears to be preventing people from accessing Twitter on certain ISPs. But what does this mean?

Those who have traveled to Vietnam know that it’s a bit troublesome to get on Facebook. Though the country’s domestic Facebook block pales in comparison to China’s Great Firewall, it still can inconvenience less tech-savvy internet users. In order to circumvent the block, all one must do is go into System Preferences and change your Domain Name System to Google’s DNS with 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4. Otherwise, you’ll be left at the mercy of whatever coffeeshop, hotel, or internet cafe you happen to be at.

Now, this mild prohibition appears to have been extended to Twitter as well.

Twitter is barely used in Vietnam. It’s only for uber-nerds like myself and readers of Tech In Asia. With Facebook, Vietnam is one of the fastest growing Facebook countries in the world and the block impacts a large majority of users. The irony is the block is so mild, it’s easily passable. With Twitter, the population that uses it is so small that it will go largely unnoticed.

For Twitter users in the country that are wise to the ways of the Vietnamese, they’ll just change their Google DNS and go on with their day, just as they do when they want to access Facebook. Or they won’t pay it any mind at all, after all, no one’s on Twitter anyway.

In other words – don’t panic just yet.

We have reached out to Twitter for comment and update here if we hear back from them.

(Editing by Terence Lee and Josh Horwitz)