Global social media platforms Facebook, Google, and TikTok censored more than 15,000 pieces of content deemed to be “anti-Party and anti-state,” over the past year in Vietnam, government statistics showed.
The scale of censorship was revealed on Nov. 28, during a conference of the Ministry of Information and Communications, where the Internet Service Management Agency reported that it ordered the companies to remove content that “violated Vietnamese laws.”
According to the report, over the past year, Facebook censored 8,981 posts, Google censored 6,043 pieces of content, and TikTok applied censorship measures to 971 videos considered to be in violation, and that the three companies had complied with more than 90% of Hanoi’s requests.
The practice of foreign tech companies censoring content in Vietnam at the behest of the state has been condemned by international human rights organizations.
In 2020, Amnesty International published a report on the phenomenon, calling the companies' censorship “arbitrary.”
Also, at the conference held on Nov. 28, the Ministry of Information and Communications discussed the dissemination of Decree 147, the latest legal tool issued by the government to more strictly control the use of social networks in Vietnam.
RFA attempted to contact the social media firms but received no response by the time of publishing.
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New laws
On Saturday, Vietnam’s National Assembly, or parliament, approved a law that requires organizations and individuals to provide data to state agencies when requested by authorities without the consent of the data subject in specific situations.
Those situations include when responding to a state of emergency, when there is a threat to national defense and security but not to the extent of declaring a state of emergency, during disasters, and when preventing and combating riots and terrorism.
The law passed with 451 out of a possible 458 votes, accounting for nearly 95% of the total number of lawmakers in the assembly.
The law has been criticized by a number of international experts. Nikkei news site quoted some experts as saying that this law would stifle innovation and increase the trade surplus with the U.S. as President-elect Donald Trump is about to take office.
Japan’s Nikkei newspaper quoted the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) as saying that the trade surplus between Vietnam and the U.S. is “very high” and Hanoi should protect this trade relationship.
Jonathan McHale, vice president of the CCIA, which represents Facebook, Amazon, TSMC and Deliveroo, was quoted by Nikkei as saying that policies that hinder data transfers, including provisions in the new law, are harming foreign companies and domestic economies that thrive on outside participation.
According to Nikkei, the new law is heavily influenced by China’s recent data regulations.
Translated by Son Nguyen. Edited by Eugene Whong.