Vietnam Slammed Over New Rules Barring News-Sharing on Social Media
RFA
– 08/02/2013
A global media watchdog
has slammed Vietnam’s new rules that bar Internet users from sharing news
stories on social media sites, calling the restrictions one of the worst attacks
on freedom of information in the one-party state in recent years.
Decree 72, which has ignited a storm of protest among Vietnam’s Internet users
since it was made public Wednesday, contains a clause stipulating that blogs and
social media sites should only be used to share “personal information.”
Under the new rules which go into effect in September, individuals will not be
allowed to share news articles on social media sites and blogs, according to
media reports and press watchdogs.
France-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Friday denounced Decree 72 as a
“gross violation of the right to inform and be informed,” saying the social
media restrictions will stifle a culture of independent information that has
emerged in Vietnam’s blossoming blogosphere despite strict censorship controls.
“If it takes effect, Vietnamese will be permanently deprived of the independent
and outspoken information that normally circulates in blogs and forums,” the
group said in a statement on its website Friday.
The decree is the “harshest offensive against freedom of information” in the
country since 2011, when the government introduced Decree No. 2 setting out
sanctions for journalists who violate a series of vague provisions, it said.
It is not clear how Decree 72 will be implemented or what penalties individuals
will face for violating its provisions, but Internet commentators said it could
make it illegal to share links to stories or even discuss articles published
online in Vietnam's state-run press.
Hoang Vinh Bao, head of Vietnam’s Department of Radio, TV, and Electronic
Information, said that under the new rules, individuals will not be allowed “to
quote general information … from newspapers, press agencies, or other
state-owned websites,” according to a report on the state-run VNExpress news
site.
Clause 20.4 of the decree stipulates that a “personal information webpage is a
webpage created by individual on their own or via a social network.”
Such pages “should be used to provide and exchange information of that
individual only; it does not represent other individual or organization, and is
not allowed to provide compiled information,” according to a translation by
Tuoi Tre newspaper.
Foreign companies
Rights groups have also said the decree will force foreign internet companies
like Facebook and Google to comply with Vietnam’s censorship laws.
The decree effectively aims to make such companies "complicit in curbing online
freedoms," Shawn Crispin of media watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists
told Agence France-Presse.
A provision in an earlier draft that would have required foreign internet
companies to establish offices in Vietnam was dropped from the final version,
which was signed by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on July 15.
But the new rules will still require foreign companies to adhere to a strict set
of guidelines governing what kind of content they can host on their websites and
forcing them to turn over personal information about users who violate
Vietnamese law.
Under the decree, Internet service providers are barred from "providing
information that is against Vietnam, undermining national security, social order
and national unity... or information distorting, slandering, and defaming the
prestige of organizations, honor, and dignity of individuals.”
‘Nonsensical and dangerous’
RSF said the decree’s provisions restricting news on social media sites will be
nearly impossible to enforce across the board, but they could be used to target
and “make an example of” individuals who criticize the ruling Vietnamese
Communist Party.
“The decree is both nonsensical and extremely dangerous,” the group said.
“Its implementation will require massive and constant government surveillance of
the entire Internet, an almost impossible challenge. But, at the same time, it
will reinforce the legislative arsenal available to the authorities.”
This year Vietnam has jailed more than 40 and activists amid a crackdown on
online dissent that has intensified over the past three years, convicting many
of them under vaguely worded national security provisions, according to rights
groups.
RSF ranks Vietnam 172nd out of 179 countries on its press freedom index and
lists the country as an “Enemy of the Internet.”
Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Rachel
Vandenbrink.