Politics

Vietnam creates code of conduct for social media users

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Jun 18 (EFE).- Vietnam has created a social network code of conduct that encourages users to post positive content to guarantee “civil liberty” and recommends officials to tell their superiors about “conflicting information.”

The Information Ministry said Friday the code will be applied to individuals and organizations that use social networks and seeks to “guarantee civil liberty, business freedom and non-discrimination between national and foreign suppliers.”

The ministry disapproves of the publication of content that violates the law and affects “the interests of the state” and encourages “promoting the beauty of the Vietnamese landscape, its people and its culture, as well as spreading good stories about good people,” says the code, which came into force after its approval Thursday.

Additionally, social media platform providers must follow Vietnamese laws, especially when authorities order the removal of content deemed contrary to law.

This rule was already included in the controversial cybersecurity law approved in January 2019, which also obliges companies such as Google or Facebook to provide the communist authorities with their users’ data if they require.

The new code, which does not specify sanctions for non-compliance, also encourages social network users not to use false identities, to share information from only official sources and not to share content with bad language or that advertise illegal services.

Vietnam has increased the repression of dissidents on social media in recent years, especially on Facebook, which has 60 million users in the country, and YouTube.

Both companies have been pressured by the government, which considers it does not comply with all the requests it makes to them, but also with the disapproval of dissidents and organizations such as Amnesty International, which labeled them as “instruments” of censorship and harassment of the public. EFE

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