The thought of government setting down Internet ground rules to protect private information and prevent repeats of Facebook’s data scandal may seem attractive. But that’s exactly how the curtailment of free speech starts, with a regulatory reform that sounds so obviously helpful and necessary that its implementation feels almost mundane. That’s what the Vietnamese government is counting on this week as it introduces a new cyber law that it insists is needed to combat online terrorism and spying.
Building on the 10,000-member cyber warfare military unit the country launched in 2017 to fight “wrong views,” Vietnam is now setting out with its latest regulations to sanitize what those in the country can read online. As well as mandating that Internet companies such as Google and Facebook record and keep data on their users (in case the Vietnamese government wants to sneak a look or 10, at any point in the future), the law demands that these same companies take down anything on their sites that Vietnamese authorities find “toxic.”
Throwing people in prison for online expressions of disapproval of the Vietnamese government, the country’s leaders have already been actively shutting down dissent before the implementation of the new regulations; but putting individuals behind bars was not enough. Vietnamese authorities wanted to be able to dispense with the critiques entirely, wiping them from Facebook status updates before they could spread, a more efficient way to erase public anti-state sentiment — an essential task for a one-party government and one they will now be able to accomplish with ease.
Marni Soupcoff – National Post – January 7, 2019.
Want More Investigative Content?
