Vietnam is preparing new rules to limit which social media accounts can post news-related content, three people familiar with the matter said.
The rules, expected to be announced by the end of this year and with details yet to be hammered out, would establish a legal basis for controlling news dissemination on platforms such as Facebook and YouTube while placing a significant moderation burden on platform providers, two of the sources said.
The sources asked not to be identified, as discussions about the new rules remain confidential.
Photo: Reuters
The Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications and Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“The government wants to fix what it sees as the ‘news-lisation’ of social media,” one source familiar with the talks said. “News-lisation,” or “bao hoa,” is a term used by the authorities to describe the misleading of users into thinking that social media accounts are authorized news outlets.
Government officials have been holding confidential meetings with popular social media and Internet firms to brief them on which types of accounts would be allowed to post news content under the new rules, the sources said.
Authorities would be able to order social media companies to ban accounts that break those rules, they said.
The Vietnamese Communist Party already maintains tight media censorship and tolerates little dissent, with one of the world’s most stringent Internet regimes and national guidelines on social media behavior.
Two sources with direct knowledge said that more rules on Internet and social media platforms would be introduced around the fourth quarter to early next year.
As tech-savvy young Vietnamese increasingly turn to social media for information, those platforms have become a target for government efforts to restrict the flow of news from unauthorized sources.
Vietnam is a top-10 market globally for Facebook with 60 million to 70 million users, according to data from last year, and sources familiar with the matter said that it generates about US$1 billion in annual revenue for the company — surpassing France.
YouTube has 60 million users in Vietnam and TikTok has 20 million, according to government estimates last year, although Twitter remains a relatively small player.
Meta Platforms Inc, owner of Facebook, and Twitter Inc declined to comment.
Alphabet Inc’s Google and YouTube did not respond to requests for comment.
TikTok said in a statement that it addresses content violations based on applicable laws and with adherence to its guidelines, but did not comment on pending Vietnam regulations.
The Vietnamese government in July adopted a set of non-binding guidelines on what qualifies as news firms, including criteria to distinguish “real” and “fake” news outlets, warning that some social networking sites include accounts that mislead users into thinking they are newspapers.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant