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Vietnam Deploys 10,000 Cyber Warriors to Fight 'Wrongful Views' (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the assuming-control dept.

Vietnam is deploying a 10,000-member military cyber warfare unit to combat what the government sees as a growing threat of "wrongful views" proliferating on the internet, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing local media reports. From the report: Force 47 has worked pro-actively against distorted information, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported, citing Nguyen Trong Nghia, deputy head of the general politics department under the Vietnam People's Military. The disclosure of the unit comes as the Communist government pressures YouTube and Facebook to remove videos and accounts seen damaging the reputations of leaders or promoting anti-party views. Facebook this year removed 159 accounts at Vietnam's behest, while YouTube took down 4,500 videos, or 90 percent of what the government requested, according to VietnamNet news, which cited Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan last week. The National Assembly is debating a cybersecurity bill that would require technology companies to store certain data on servers in the country.

46 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. China, Facebook, Vietnam, Google, Youtube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    All deploying resources to fight, "wrongful views"

    Venezuela doesn't have to because no one has electricity.

    LOL!

    1. Re: China, Facebook, Vietnam, Google, Youtube by sycodon · · Score: 1, Redundant

      I think his point was that China, Facebook, Vietnam, Google, and Youtube all seem to think THEY know what is "wrongful views".

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    2. Re: China, Facebook, Vietnam, Google, Youtube by tinkerton · · Score: 1

      Obviously Google does not know and they know that they don't know. So they ask trusted propaganda providers like Propornot and the Alliance for Securing Democracy.

    3. Re: China, Facebook, Vietnam, Google, Youtube by Reverend+Green · · Score: 1

      "Alliance for Securing Democracy" is a seriously Orwellian name. Really splendid.

    4. Re: China, Facebook, Vietnam, Google, Youtube by Reverend+Green · · Score: 1

      Fucking dunce.

    5. Re:China, Facebook, Vietnam, Google, Youtube by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      https://fee.org/articles/what-...

      Q: What did socialists use before candles?
      A: Electricity.

      It's an old joke, but unfortunately, dark humor is the reality in Venezuela. The socialist regime of Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicolas Maduro has created catastrophic shortages of toilet paper, food, medicine, comedy, beer, and electricity. (There is, of course, no shortage of its increasingly worthless paper money.)

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  2. Sure, when others do it... by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In Vietnam they fight wrongful views, we're fighting fake news, can someone tell me what the difference is?

    Preferably someone from the agreeable reality department.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Sure, when others do it... by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Care to elaborate how it's different?

      I'd love to get more fact checking and research into our news, but the time you spend fact checking and doing background research, some agenda outlet carpet bombs every social and asocial media with their bullshit, drowning the single well researched and sourced article you might eventually produce in the noise.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Sure, when others do it... by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I do know the difference. Our media increasingly don't. More and more opinion pieces are paraded about as if they were fact while actually being little more than someone speaking his mind.

      Which is good, don't get me wrong, but it should be taken as such. Unfortunately people do accept arguments from authority unchecked. Oh $big_important_person (or even just $big_boobed_celebrity) said it, so it's true.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:Sure, when others do it... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Fake news is a huge problem, I agree. A year later and it still shows no signs of getting any better. Recently, four big scoops were run by major news organizations â" written by top reporters and presumably churned through layers of scrupulous editing â" that turned out to be completely wrong: Reuters, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and others reported that the special counsel's office had subpoenaed Donald Trump's records from Deutsche Bank. They weren't. ABC reported that Trump had directed Michael Flynn to make contact with Russian officials before the election. He didn't. The New York Times ran a story that showed K.T. McFarland had acknowledged collusion. She didn't. Then CNN topped off the week by falsely reporting that the Trump campaign had been offered access to hacked Democratic National Committee emails before they were published.

      Forget your routine bias, these were four bombshells disseminated to millions of Americans by breathless anchors, pundits, and analysts, all of them feeding frenzied expectations about collusion that have now been internalized as indisputable truths by many. All four pieces, incidentally, are useless without their central faulty claims. Yet there they sit. And these are only four of dozens of other stories that have fizzled over the year.

      If we are to accept the special pleadings of journalists we have to believe these were all honest mistakes. They may be. But a person might then ask, why is it that every one of the dozens of honest mistakes are prejudiced in the very same way? Why hasn't there been a single major honest mistake that diminishes the Trump-Russia collusion story? Why is there never an honest mistake that indicts Democrats?

      When all the errors are in the bank's favor, you can be forgiven for thinking there's more at work than sloppy arithmetic.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    4. Re:Sure, when others do it... by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      The difference is, us good, them look different. Simple, really.

      We know our reasons, and we know our negative stereotypes about them, and that adds up to them not having good reasons for anything.

      Considering their history and government, "wrongful" in this case probably means insufficiently loyal to principles of national unity. In the case of fake news, it means fabricated lies.

    5. Re:Sure, when others do it... by gbjbaanb · · Score: 2

      No worries there - you'll provide the links to how they were wrong, surely.

      and I'm not just doing the usual "citation needed" designed to make you run round in rings, I am genuinely interested because the only part of fake news Breitbart was accused of turned out to be a trivial mistake where they said "church" to refer to a cathedral.

      I thought Breitbart held itself to better journalistic integrity than most, simply because any error on their part would be seized upon by the mainstream eager to discredit it.

    6. Re:Sure, when others do it... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      Care to elaborate how it's different?

      America: Russia bad.
      Vietnam: China bad.

    7. Re:Sure, when others do it... by DRJlaw · · Score: 2

      I am genuinely interested because the only part of fake news Breitbart was accused of turned out to be a trivial mistake where they said "church" to refer to a cathedral.

      Only part, eh?

    8. Re:Sure, when others do it... by Greyfox · · Score: 1

      They get paid in Dong.

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    9. Re:Sure, when others do it... by DRJlaw · · Score: 1

      No fake news at Breitbart. No sir.

    10. Re:Sure, when others do it... by DRJlaw · · Score: 1

      Why is it your only counter argument is to bring up two news sources that are not at all relevant and unmentioned?

      Because I do not wish to be limited by your selection bias?

      You're not disproving the point, which is that our credible, mainstream media staffed by highly educated, erudite journalists, regularly produces fake news.

      So Fox News and Breitbart are staffed by uneducated, mouth breathing monkeys, and that excuses their well-documented tendency for producing fake news? Selection bias.

      It's a simple matter of psychology: post misleading news, wait for people to react, it's something known as "impression formation". Once an impression has been formed, it sticks. This is how they psyop the masses.

      Scary how well the description fits.

      The greatest danger to our nation comes from a free press that chooses sides in the political process. And that has openly and unapologetically taken place.

      Openly, with fanfare, and long before you portray it to have happened.

    11. Re:Sure, when others do it... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      So, you utterly and completely fail to refute any arguments I made. "B-B-But Fox News!" does not excuse the New York Times and all of the other highly credible mainstream media outlets from publishing fake news.

      CNN is further to the left than Fox is to the right, and it's less accurate, and the reason for that is pretty simple. Media liberals needn't interact with conservatives or take any notice of what they say. They literally cannot even tell you the other side's argument. That's not true of conservatives.

      Also, if you get things wrong at Fox, you get called on it by dozens and dozens of liberal journalists. That's not true of anything but the most egregious errors of the NYT or CNN. The 5 percent of the media that leans conservative simply doesn't have the time to fact check the other 95 percent in the way that the other 95 percent checks it. It is, as a result, less accurate (except when checked by fellow left-leaning "fact checkers").

      The national media really does work in a bubble, something that wasn't true as recently as 2008. And the bubble is growing more extreme. Concentrated heavily along the coasts, the bubble is both geographic and political. If you're a working journalist, odds aren't just that you work in a pro-Clinton county-odds are that you reside in one of the nation's most pro-Clinton counties.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    12. Re:Sure, when others do it... by dissy · · Score: 1

      In Vietnam they fight wrongful views, we're fighting fake news, can someone tell me what the difference is?

      Fake news is:
      "Nguyen Trong Nghia took his trash out to the street last night at 4PM in pink bunny slippers"

      I know that is fake because I just made it up. Even if I'm accidentally right, I intended it to be a comical lie, so it should probably count.

      Wrongful view would be:
      "Nguyen Trong Nghia took his trash out to the street last night at 4PM in pink bunny slippers"

      Where Nguyen claims he did not and does not take out his trash, despite a video I recorded of him doing so in his pink bunny slippers that I posted to Youtube.
      Nguyen then has the video taken down and tells his military to kill me so I stop talking about his slippers.

      Or at least it would be if I had such a video to post and he cared who I was and any of that above had happened. Which it didn't, but it makes me happy imagining it did :P

      As an upside, I wonder how many people will now be picturing this higher up political head taking out his trash wearing pink bunny slippers? I hope it's at least a couple.

      PS, Nguyen, please don't have me killed. Buds?

    13. Re:Sure, when others do it... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      ABC reported that Trump had directed Michael Flynn to make contact with Russian officials before the election. He didn't.

      I'm pretty sure you can't know this one. How would you know what two politicians did or didn't talk about privately?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    14. Re:Sure, when others do it... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      It is the burden of proof on the journalist to provide sources, and I am baffled you aren't aware of this. They can't just make up news that makes them feel good or that fills their emotional and political needs - but that is exactly what they are doing, sadly.

      ABC News increases orange saturation when filming Trump. Despite two hours of available air time, ABC's Good Morning America on Wednesday skipped a damning New York Times story with a bombshell claim: Hillary Clinton, during the 2016 presidential campaign, was told that Harvey Weinstein was a rapist, but still took his donations and raised money off him.

      Anybody - ANYBODY - who still thinks after all this that they can rely on mainstream media like ABC for useful information on the news of the day - presented fairly, offering coverage of all viewpoints, untainted by a concealed agenda - is nothing but a damned fool. Period fucking dot.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    15. Re:Sure, when others do it... by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      If you're recycling propaganda about "socialists" to describe Vietnam, you're just another blathering idiot.

      McNamara even was in a movie where they go in detail into why they were totally fucking wrong to measure the Vietnam War through that lens.

      Don't be such a fucking idiot. At least go download the documentary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      If you think Vietnam has anything to do with "socialists," you don't know what socialism is, or anything about Vietnam.

    16. Re:Sure, when others do it... by DRJlaw · · Score: 1

      So, you utterly and completely fail to refute any arguments I made. "B-B-But Fox News!" does not excuse the New York Times and all of the other highly credible mainstream media outlets from publishing fake news.

      It does not. It demonstrates that the problem that you complain about is neither limited to "highly credible mainstream media outlets" nor exclusive to an MSM that you appear to insinuate is out to get Trump. It demonstrates that the same problem existed back in say, 2008, when the right lost its shit over the election of Obama. Which begs the question, why are you so compelled to apply a one-sided political narrative to a far more general problem?

      CNN is further to the left than Fox is to the right, and it's less accurate, and the reason for that is pretty simple. Media liberals needn't interact with conservatives or take any notice of what they say. They literally cannot even tell you the other side's argument. That's not true of conservatives.

      As a formerly consistent conservative that gave up on the party in 2012, the last sentence made me throw up a bit in my mouth. The first sentence is hogwash. Prove it.

      Also, if you get things wrong at Fox, you get called on it by dozens and dozens of liberal journalists. That's not true of anything but the most egregious errors of the NYT or CNN.

      Certainly not true -- conservative AM radio and talk show empires never look for errors in the NYT or CNN. Jones, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, Carlson, and innumberable others simply talk sports all day.

      The national media really does work in a bubble, something that wasn't true as recently as 2008. And the bubble is growing more extreme.

      No Fox bubble -- just "fair and balanced."

      Concentrated heavily along the coasts, the bubble is both geographic and political. If you're a working journalist, odds aren't just that you work in a pro-Clinton county-odds are that you reside in one of the nation's most pro-Clinton counties.

      It really burns you that the cities, college-educated whites, and "Republican establishment" don't buy into Trump's demagoguery, doesn't it?

    17. Re:Sure, when others do it... by Freischutz · · Score: 1

      In Vietnam they fight wrongful views, we're fighting fake news, can someone tell me what the difference is?

      Preferably someone from the agreeable reality department.

      They guys complaining about 'wrongful views' are the spawn of Satan the fat old orange guy with the comb over complaining about 'fake news' is the greatest leader of all time. That is also true in reverse by the way although the semantics may differ. It all depends on your point of view. Extremism is like a computer, you can run "Bat-shit-crazy Commie OS" on it or you can run "Bat-shit-crazy Republican OS", on it. If you want to spice up your life you can get two of them. Run "Bat-shit-crazy Muslim Fundamentalist OS" on one, "Bat-shit-crazy Christian Fundamentalist OS" on the other and then connect them with an ethernet cable. I recommend doing so remotely from a bunker about 80 kilometres away since the reaction on when you connect those two tends to be both instant and very explosive.

    18. Re:Sure, when others do it... by RedK · · Score: 1

      It's actually sad that people don't know the difference.

      Fake news = Actual wrong facts, or omission of facts that changes the context of a story. Example : "President Trump decided to move the embassy to Jerusalem" is fake news. He's simply enforcing the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act.

      Wrongful views = People with different opinions on subjective matters have "wrong" views. Example : "It's OK to be white" is a wrongful view because it somehow promotes White Supremacy and is part of the "Alt-right".

      It's that easy, yet here you are, claiming both are the same for some reason.

      --
      "Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
      Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
    19. Re:Sure, when others do it... by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      exactly, what is fake news these days if not news someone simply disagrees with. Hence the need for places like Breitbart to tell us the stuff that the mainstream media would rather not let anyone hear about.

      I wish the MSM reported this stuff as equally as the stuff they usually print, and that I didn't have to defend Breitbart for the right to say what they do.

    20. Re:Sure, when others do it... by AHuxley · · Score: 2

      When the West does IT?.
      "British army creates team of Facebook warriors" (31 Jan ‘15)
      https://www.theguardian.com/uk...
      "Is America Prepared for Meme Warfare?" (Feb 1 2017)
      https://motherboard.vice.com/e...
      "So, Why Does the Air Force Want Hundreds of Fake Online Identities on Social Media?" (Feb 19, 2011)
      https://www.cbsnews.com/news/s...
      "BBC World Service gets funding boost from government" (23 November 2015)
      http://www.bbc.com/news/entert...
      The new "Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act"
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    21. Re:Sure, when others do it... by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      What makes you think that the "fake" label won't be used that way? "I don't like these news and I have power, so I declare them fake so I can erase them" isn't that outlandish, is it?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    22. Re:Sure, when others do it... by KeensMustard · · Score: 1

      In the US the president declares a item to be 'fake news' whereas in Vietnam: - oh wait. Carry on.

    23. Re: Sure, when others do it... by Reverend+Green · · Score: 1

      One of the big social advantages that American citizens living in Vietnam enjoy is that, despite the unfortunate history of war between our two countries, we Americans are most definitely not Chinese.

  3. Wow by Ryanrule · · Score: 1

    ivan bots be all up in here.

  4. Truth is a problem by Baron_Yam · · Score: 1

    People tend to believe what they want to believe, from the loudest/most frequently heard source.

    It's natural to want to counter that, but the problem is the same system you set up to tell the truth now could be selling propaganda tomorrow. And that's if people don't immediately dismiss the truth as propaganda.

  5. One man's "freedom fighter" by Alain+Williams · · Score: 1

    is another man's "terrorist". It is rare that political items in the news are black and white. This means that it is hard to get agreement amongst reasonable people as to what is "fake news". Add in those who are deliberately trying to influence opinion to follow a story that paints some group in a good light and it becomes even harder. By the time that most of us get to see the news it has been through several lenses, several of which deliberately distort the image.

    Thus: beware accepting the prevalent opinion of those around you; they are reading local newspapers and watching regional TV, it is unlikely that they have unfiltered information. However: your life will probably be easier if you agree with those around you -- social pressures tend to result in "herd opinions" where those to disagree can be socially ostracised.

    1. Re:One man's "freedom fighter" by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      ...is another man's "terrorist"

      Sure, if you're a moral relativist who pretends that words have no meaning.

      This means that it is hard to get agreement amongst reasonable people as to what is "fake news".

      No, it's not hard at all. When, say, ABC news runs a stock-market-damaging fake story about Trump/Russia collusion that is exactly counter to the actual facts, that's fake news. It's not at all hard to agree on that, unless you're so dedicated to Trump bashing that you're willing to pretend you're too dumb to actually understand what written dates look like. Reasonable people have no trouble at all figuring out that two different dates are ... two different dates.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  6. 10,000 warriors? by HockeyPuck · · Score: 1

    Guess they've never heard of automation.

  7. Won't work here ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    ... 10,000 is way too small a number to stop disparagement of pussy-grabbers because people like me have copied the evidence to several places.

    Trump Lewd Conversation about Women

    Or First Lady Lesbian Photos.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  8. Read what you wrote again by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    Fake news and Wrongful Views are different things. On a site that specializes in science you should know this.

    Fake news means news for which there are no sources, evidence, or those sources and that evidence is highly suspect. It's an objective, factual statement.

    The phrase 'Wrongful views' is highly, highly subjective. What is 'wrongful' can be debated, but only rarely can it be quantified and defined. Bullying, Climate Change and inciting violence comes to mind, and if that's all this is that would be fine. But Vietnam isn't a country well know for progressive ideals. They're too poor for that. With rare exceptions a country that poor tends to oppress people in order to maintain the wealthy's standard of living.

    What I'm saying is, words have meaning. Fake news is actually fake. Yes, there is a danger of Gaslighting, but fighting actual Fake news is a worthwhile cause. Casting a net against 'Wrongful Views' is dangerous and frightening.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re: Read what you wrote again by Reverend+Green · · Score: 1

      Why do you imagine Vietnam as an oppressive place? Given the terrible history of the French and American wars just a few decades ago, this country has achieved remarkable levels of prosperity, freedom, and social cohesion.

      Right now there are more than 200 highrise buildings under construction in Ho Chi Minh City alone. The streets are clean and safe to walk at night. (Safe from crime - not safe from motorcycle traffic!). Small mom & pop business is thriving. The government here takes a "commanding heights" approach to socialism - megacorps must have a degree of state ownership, but the government leaves small business alone.

      There's no freedom of press or freedom of political speech here. Those are some of America's few remaining strengths, and we should guard them jealously. So yes, calling for capitalist parliamentary democracy would be considered a wrong view. And calling for a new split between North and South would be tantamount to treason.

      Outside of a few political topics, people here enjoy rather more practical personal freedom than we do back in the States. There is no Gulag here. No heavily armed cops just milling around downtown looking for trouble, like you see in New York or San Francisco. Most of the cops don't even carry guns.

      Families and family values are strong here. Divorce is rare. Feminism is rare. Thus most children grow up in (reasonably) happy homes with two parents.

      The biggest concern among educated Vietnamese is the threat from an increasingly militaristic China. It's no minor worry if you know history. It seems like half the major streets here are named after one or another of the many historic heros who kicked out Chinese invaders.

  9. Suckers! by jedrek · · Score: 1

    The current US administration already got this for free from eastern troll mills and /r/The_Donald.

    1. Re:Suckers! by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      Really? So eastern troll mills have mobilized the US military to silence people whose opinions they don't like? Please, do fill us in on the details.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  10. Re:Correct The Record by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

    Weird how Slashdot never reported negatively with the special censorship logo regarding Correct The Record doing the same thing...

    Because CTR did not "do the same thing". CTR is not part of the government, and censored nothing. If you say something, and CTR responds by disagreeing with you, that is not "censorship".

  11. Let Google/Twitter/Facebook fact-check 4 all! by dslmodem · · Score: 1

    Create a federal news agency in charge of truth? Wait a minute, it sounds like TASS in Soviet Union?

    IMHO, if our public schools are successful in educating everyone, we should have enough common sense and be immune from fake news and various bias. Sadly, a lot of bias and fake stuff are in our public schools/universities.

    --

    ^(oo)^pig~

  12. Relevant xkcd by Lost+Race · · Score: 1

    https://xkcd.com/386/

  13. Trolls Must Love the 'Cyber Warrior' Moniker by Motard · · Score: 1

    I'm a Warrior! Hooo!

  14. Re: Vietnam has an SJW problem, too? by Reverend+Green · · Score: 1

    One of the awesome things about Vietnam is that it most definitely does NOT have a SJW infestation.

    The Party does try to promote Communist values in the official propaganda. But that has basically no similarity to the degenerate values of the running dogs on the American "left".

    Somewhere I read the term "Confucian Right" used to describe the Communist Parties in Vietnam and China. While I'm pretty certain the Party would not endorse that terminology, I think it has some good descriptive value.

  15. Re: Censorship !? by Reverend+Green · · Score: 1

    Googledouches love censorship. It reinforces their feeling of smug self-satisfaction.