Vietnam's Internet is in Trouble (wapo.st)

The World Post: Vietnamese authorities have harped of late on the urgency of fighting cybersecurity threats and "bad and dangerous content." Yet the fight against either "fake news" or misinformation in Vietnam must not be used as a smoke screen for stifling dissenting opinions and curtailing freedom of speech [The link may be paywalled]. Doing so would only further stoke domestic cynicism in a country where the sudden expansion of space for free and open discussion has created a kind of high-pressure catharsis online. Other countries, including democratic states, are also scrambling to rein in toxic information online. But while Germany, for example, specifically targets hate speech and other extremist messaging that directly affects the masses, Vietnamese leaders are more fixated on content deemed detrimental to their own reputation and the survival of the regime.

The ruling Communist Party of Vietnam has repeatedly urged Facebook and Google to block "toxic" information that it said slandered and defamed Vietnamese leaders. Google sort of conformed by removing more than such 5,000 clips; Facebook also flagged about 160 anti-government accounts at the behest of the government.

Comments

The trouble with "hate speech"

[Obfuscant]

Is that the government gets to define it. Like Germany where they prohibit speech that they define as hate speech, Vietnam also prohibits speech they define as hate speech.

The best solution is to not allow the government to prohibit speech, so then there is never an issue with who defines what how.

I'm not sure how someone having a blog that mentions Hitler and Nazis "directly affects the masses", but I'm sure German officials could answer that.

Re:The trouble with "hate speech"

[epyT-R]

A culture that must be shielded from such inanities (including screeds like yours) in order to survive is not fit for survival. Instead of teaching children to be adult snowflakes like the left does now, we should return to teaching them how to handle adversity.

Re:The trouble with "hate speech"

[phantomfive]

I'm not sure what the solution is

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence." --Justice Sanford.

Oppressing speech with censorship, even if the speech is made of lies, will never be effective, and can easily make the problem worse. If good people are not willing to speak up, then there is no hope for the country.

"toxic information"

[rogoshen1]

Jesus Christ. Having a well-educated, thoughtful, free, and open society is the remedy against "toxic information"

Anything else is censorship.

Soros

[Tailhook]

The ruling class want FacebookGoogleTwitterEtc regulated to stop "populism." Here is Soros using fear to justify putting government minders in control, complete with scary images of eyeballs controlled by corporations and warnings of a Trump dictatorship.

Everywhere you look leftists and statists are using fear to put themselves in control of the Internet.

Why not?

[Trailer Trash]

Yet the fight against either "fake news" or misinformation in Vietnam must not be used as a smoke screen for stifling dissenting opinions and curtailing freedom of speech.

That's what the fight against "fake news" and "misinformation" is used for everywhere else.