Report by Hima Sutha
On 3rd November 2022, Vietnam’s Information Minister, Nguyen Manh Hung, announced that the social media regulations/ restrictions had been tightened.
According to the new regulations, posts/ articles or any social media content containing fake news must be taken down within 24 hours. Previously, it was set to 48 hours.
These new restrictions make Vietnam’s one of the world’s most stringently controlled countries for social media.
The current ruling party- the Communist Party of Vietnam’s (CPV) hopes to break down “anti-state” activity.
According to the minister, the Vietnamese government’s penalties for uploading false information on social media are 1/10th of the other south Asian countries. The ministry also plans to introduce a new policy to increase the fine an individual will pay for spreading false information.
They also intend to come up with regulations that restrict the authority to post news only to a
few social media accounts, and sensitive information must be taken down within 3 hours.
Hung suggested that by 2023, they will develop laws that deal entirely with “News-lisation”, a term used by higher authorities to explain when people are deceived into considering that social media accounts are “official” news outlets.
It will be exciting to see how social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook will operate in Asian
countries which are now imposing stricter regulations.