Vietnam says Facebook steps up local content restrictions

HANOI (Reuters) – Facebook is proscribing entry to rising quantities of content in Vietnam, a authorities official stated on Thursday, because the Southeast Asian nation ramps up a marketing campaign to tighten entry to the web.

The social media platform is extensively utilized in Vietnam the place, regardless of sweeping financial reform and rising openness to social change, the ruling Communist Party continues to censor media tightly and doesn’t tolerate criticism.

“Facebook now meets 70 to 75% of the Vietnamese authorities’s requests, in comparison with round 30% earlier, data minister Nguyen Manh Hung stated at a parliament assembly in Hanoi.

Hung was referring to authorities requests for Facebook restrictions, that means a bit of content posted to the web site which can’t be considered in some international locations as a result of it’s deemed to violate local legal guidelines.

Facebook stated in May it had elevated the quantity of content to which it restricted entry in Vietnam by over 500% within the second half of 2018.

Facebook didn’t instantly reply to a Reuters request for remark.

Vietnam has been tightening web guidelines over the previous couple of years, culminating in a cyber safety regulation which got here into impact in January and which requires firms like Facebook to set up local workplaces and retailer knowledge within the nation.

Hanoi has previously accused the U.S. social media big of violating local legal guidelines by permitting subversive feedback to be revealed on its platform.

Google’s YouTube now meets 80%-85% of the federal government’s requests, up from 60% a 12 months earlier, Hung instructed the assembly.

He additionally stated that Vietnam has constructed a middle to watch the content of reports web sites and social media platforms which might type tens of millions of knowledge factors into classes like “optimistic” and “negative”.

“The ratio of ‘negative’ information had been 30%, but now we’ve taken action that ratio has basically been brought to below 10%,” stated Hung.

Separately, the data ministry has requested Facebook to reveal the identities of account customers, initially in Hanoi, the capital, and Ho Chi Minh City, the nation’s southern enterprise hub, local media reported on Thursday.

Only authenticated accounts could be allowed to broadcast dwell video on the platform, the web newspaper VnExpress reported.

Nearly 10% of the 128 prisoners held in Vietnam for expressing dissenting views have been jailed for posting anti-state feedback on social media platforms akin to Facebook, an Amnesty report stated in May.