The war on fabricated economic rumors

(Baonghean) - On December 15, the General Department of Security of the Ministry of Public Security arrested Nguyen Xuan Long (34 years old, residing in Dong Nai) and another suspect residing in Lam Dong. These two people are administrators of a website created by a person in the US (since September), who created or quoted fabricated information about Vietnam's upcoming currency change.

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Previously, on December 1, the State Bank of Vietnam strongly affirmed that recent rumors on social networks about the upcoming currency change were completely fabricated and had bad intentions. At the same time, the recent change in currency denominations of some countries in the world did not affect and were not related to the stability of the Vietnamese currency. People need to be vigilant and fight against the above false and fabricated information to avoid economic losses, affecting people's lives and national monetary security.

Decades ago, the market also witnessed a wave of rumors and price fevers of all kinds, about stocks, real estate and some construction materials, about foreign currencies and USD exchange rates, about rice and even about currency exchange… In fact, some people were confused. Some people even sold their houses, holding a large amount of cash, worriedly asked experts if they should withdraw money from the bank to buy gold and foreign currencies…

In the life of a market economy, there are often many rumors of all kinds about policy changes and market trends, both domestically and internationally. Reflecting the cognitive capacity and psychology of the people, as well as partly reflecting and demonstrating the measure of prestige and management efficiency of relevant state agencies, false economic rumors often appear in association with certain hot events or trends, especially when there is a lack of clarity, consistency and promptness in the policy response of the authorities.

The rapid and persistent spread of false rumors is not only due to the sensationalism and importance of the content of the rumor; The active spread of rumors by those who actively spread rumors for the purpose of orienting public opinion, seizing opportunities, and "fishing in troubled waters"; The loss of initiative and sober direction of action by the crowd lacking official, accurate, and timely information, as well as due to the existence of certain loopholes and inadequacies in state management that are lenient with those false rumors.

When rumors are heavily oriented towards bad goals and are tacitly accepted, they can cause many unpredictable consequences, especially stimulating the psychology of the crowd in buying and selling, creating mutations and imbalances in market supply and demand associated with speculation and personal and business insecurity, causing financial damage to the country, businesses and people... Rumors about currency exchange are even more dangerous because they undermine national monetary security, create doubts about the state's monetary policy, despite the fact that there can be no reason for a currency exchange like the one in the early years of national reunification...

To effectively prevent false economic rumors, it is necessary to strengthen regulations and institutionalize statements; ensure the right to access information and be provided with official, timely, high-quality and legally responsible information from state agencies or representatives, relevant business organizations; attach importance to perfecting and complying with economic management and market competition principles; transparency, stability and predictability of policies; Consistent policy responses, in accordance with economic principles, objective market signals and integration commitment requirements, and world practices.

In particular, management agencies need to minimize and overcome manifestations of abuse of administrative management tools, orders, and the phenomenon of "lobbying", "policy-running", and group-interest thinking, regardless of national interests and prestige; promptly detect and severely punish individuals and organizations that spread false rumors, sabotage policies, speculate and engage in unfair competition; resolutely handle serious violations criminally, and widely announce them on mass media to deter and warn public opinion.

At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen propaganda and education to strengthen people's and businesses' awareness and trust in state management policies in the market economy; improve self-awareness and vigilance against unofficial information.

Dr. Nguyen Minh Phong