Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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

Posted by msmash on from the tussle-continues dept.

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.

7 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. The trouble with "hate speech" by Obfuscant · · Score: 3, Insightful
    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.

    1. Re:The trouble with "hate speech" by guestapoo · · Score: 3, Informative

      Karl Marx himself stated that communism must begin with the violent overthrow of democracy

      Citation is needed!
      In fact, Marx has never discussed anything about how to archive communism.
      One of the form of communism in idea of Marx is that the government must be exterminated, how does that mean "overthrow of democracy" when there would be not rulers at all?
      Don't mixed the **interpretations** of Marx's ideas of Lenin, Mao, Stalin... in as Marx's ideas!

    2. Re:The trouble with "hate speech" by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:The trouble with "hate speech" by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 3

      Karl Marx himself stated that communism must begin with the violent overthrow of democracy.
      No, he did not say that.
      You are an idiot.
      During Marx times, he btw. was German, most countries had no or no real democracy.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Then prove it: How many communist revolutions were democratically elected?
      AFAIK there were no communist revolutions on the planet so far ...

      And as it turns out, that is what communist revolutions always do (besides depriving you of your life savings and turning your home over to the state to do whatever they want with.)
      That is nonsense. Private house owners always existed in the DDR (German democratic republic), and BTW: they where not communist, they where socialist.

      However: you get some bonus points however when you can explain how democracy actually works in a typical communist/one party system, the retarded US two party system and a democratic multi party system. And please take extra care to explain why a communist one party system is not or can not be democratic!!

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    4. Re:The trouble with "hate speech" by guestapoo · · Score: 3, Informative

      I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.
      Henry Kissinger

  2. Um by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 3, Funny

    Vietnam is a communist dictatorship. I hope Internet censorship doesn't come as some sort of surprise ...

  3. Why not? by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Do you have ESP?