Vietnam’s communications ministry is proposing a decree requiring some “toxic” information in some situations be removed from social media within three hours and other false news pulled down within 24 hours.
(Bloomberg) — Vietnam’s communications ministry is proposing a decree requiring some “toxic” information in some situations be removed from social media within three hours and other false news pulled down within 24 hours.
“Fake news on the Internet, if handled slowly, will spread very widely,” Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung told the National Assembly. The ministry is looking to enforce 24-hour and three-hour take-down orders — up from the current 48 hours — of what it deems malicious content, he said.
Efforts to increase policing of Internet behavior by the nation’s Communist leaders comes as new rules requiring foreign tech companies to store user data in the Southeast Asian country trigger concerns from US business groups.
The fine for disseminating false information has increased three-fold but is still 1/10 of what other countries in the region issue, Hung said. The ministry will continue to work with other government agencies to raise the fine, he said.
The ministry is also weighing rules directing YouTube Inc. and Facebook to remove advertisements that contain false information, especially for nutritional products, Hung said. In 2020, the ministry blocked 1,700 websites that were showing signs of fraud, he said.
–With assistance from Jamille Tran.
(Updates the story with policing of the Internet in the third paragraph.)
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