Resolutely fight against "information poison mushroom"

Distorted, fabricated, and fake information is spreading day by day and hour by hour on the internet and social networks. Behind the spread of that information, there are many incidents that are fabricated and made up by those who carry out "conspiracy theories".
Unfortunately, there are still some people who, due to lack of knowledge or subjective thinking, simply and unintentionally lend a hand to those dangerous "information poison mushrooms"...

Behind fabricated information are often conspiracy theories.

"Conspiracy theory" is a phrase that has been mentioned in the world media since the 60s of the last century. In the book "Conspiracy Theory in America" ​​by Florida State University professor Lance deHaven-Smith, he claims that the CIA created the phrase "Conspiracy Theory" in the 1960s in connection with the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

The nature of conspiracy theories is to spread fabricated and distorted information to confuse public opinion, causing public opinion to misunderstand a certain object or phenomenon. In the world, there have been many events considered to be associated with conspiracy theories, such as "the car accident that led to the death of Princess Diana was carried out by the British Royal Family"; "the Apollo 11 spacecraft landing on the Moon was just a fake by the United States to fight against the Soviet Union in the race to the Moon"...

Since the advent of the internet and social media, the "mushroom of fake information" and fabricated information have had more opportunities to erupt in conjunction with conspiracy theories. Three days ago, right after the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, a series of conspiracy theories emerged, such as: The French President burned down the cathedral to blame the Yellow Vest protesters. Just minutes after the fire broke out, the American Fox News station interviewed a person who claimed to be a "French elected official" and he called the fire "France's 9/11". A Twitter account with more than 110,000 followers announced that the French President "may have burned down Notre Dame Cathedral to further tarnish the image of the Yellow Vest protesters".

Social network YouTube made a mistake in aiding conspiracy theories when its algorithm created a link to a clip about the September 11 attacks in the US. However, YouTube corrected the mistake and deleted the post immediately after receiving complaints about the website linking the fire to a terrorist event. At that time, the truth was revealed when Philippe Karsenty - the "elected French official" quoted by Fox News - was actually just a media expert who specializes in "bullshitting" about conspiracy theories. Six years ago, he was fined 7,000 euros for slandering a French television station.

In Vietnam, in recent years, there has also been a lot of fabricated and distorted information that is believed to be linked to dark plots. Among them, spreading false information about the health, private life, and distorting the honor and dignity of some Party and State leaders is a tactic often used by bad guys. Subjects such as: Le Nguyen Huong Tra, Bui Thanh Hieu, websites of Viet Tan organization, Radio Free Asia, BBC Vietnamese, thoibao.de... regularly post and spread distorted information about the leaders of the Party and State of Vietnam.

The fabricated and distorted information they fabricate includes many types such as: Fabricating bad news about foreign business trips that make the public misunderstand the prestige of leaders in foreign relations; fabricating that Party and State leaders "take money" and therefore do not strictly handle the environmental incident in the central coastal region; fabricating factional fighting and purges when our Party is stepping up the fight against corruption...

Recently, they often spread distorted information about the health of Party and State leaders. They maliciously "put fire in other people's hands", blatantly fabricate, but deliberately pretend to be knowledgeable and tell detailed stories as if they were reporting the developments of some incidents, while in fact they are completely fabricated, guessed, and copied... They make up stories about this group or that group causing harm... but in reality, they were not present at the scene of the incident, the information is only based on websites, from the personal Facebook of a few bad people to fabricate, speculate, and incite to "heat up" the situation.

Such information does not simply arouse curiosity but is associated with fabrications of internal conflicts and struggles, undermining the prestige of the Party, the State and individual leaders. Of course, the light of truth will dispel dark information. However, for some subjects, they deliberately take advantage of spreading fabricated information about Party and State leaders not only for political motives but also for the purpose of using it to gain "likes", become famous, and make money from the increase in views, comments and shares from social networks.

No gaps

Unfortunately, in the face of such dark information and plots, some people, including cadres and party members, are curious, sharing and commenting to get "likes". In the recent incidents of fabricated information, some veterans have indignantly reported to the People's Army Newspaper that there are journalists who regularly write articles on their personal pages with the intention of slandering the leaders of the Party and State; there are articles with immodest words, "following the crowd" and distorted information; not in accordance with the ethical standards of journalists...

Resolution 4 of the 12th Central Committee pointed out 9 manifestations of "self-evolution" and "self-transformation" within the Party, including the fourth manifestation: "Inciting discontent, dissent, and opposition within the Party. Taking advantage of and using the media, communications, and social networks to slander, defame, and lower the prestige and leadership role of the Party, causing internal division and suspicion among cadres, Party members, and the people."

Also in the Resolution of the 4th Central Committee, Session XII, our Party stated that in the past time, we: “Have not been proactive and lack appropriate solutions to orient information in the context of deep international integration and strong development of information technology and social networks. Information management is still loose, lacking strong enough solutions to effectively combat false information, refute the distorted arguments of hostile forces, reactionaries, opportunists and political dissidents”. Perhaps that is the reason why "information mushrooms" still have room to grow and spread. Therefore, closing the loopholes and preventing them from being exploited is the urgent task to effectively combat "information mushrooms" and dark "conspiracy theories".

Strict handling both legally and ethically

The People's Army Newspaper has repeatedly published articles criticizing the phenomenon of spreading fabricated information about Party, State and military leaders. Feedback to the editorial office from veterans, revolutionary veterans, generals and prestigious people all said that this is a violation of both law and morality.

Legally, the act of spreading false information that constitutes the crime of slander can be prosecuted under Article 122 of the Penal Code with the highest penalty of up to 7 years in prison. Article 5 of Decree No. 72/2013/ND-CP dated July 15, 2013 of the Government on management, provision and use of internet services and information on the network stipulates and strictly prohibits the act of taking advantage of the provision and use of internet services and information on the network for the purpose of providing distorted information, slandering, and insulting the reputation of organizations, honor and dignity of individuals. Article 8 of the Law on Cyber ​​Security stipulates prohibited acts, clearly prohibiting: "Providing false information that causes confusion among the people, causes damage to socio-economic activities, causes difficulties for the operations of State agencies or public servants, and infringes upon the legitimate rights and interests of other organizations and individuals."

Many countries around the world have recently taken very severe measures to punish those who use the internet to spread information that is harmful to the community. In September 2016, The Huffington Post (USA) fired a reporter because he wrote a fabricated article about the health of US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The German government requires social networking service providers to set up an office to respond within 24 hours to reports of extremist statements or fabricated information, and these companies will have to pay a fine of 500,000 euros for each time they fail to handle the information. China once detained 9 people for "fabricating and spreading rumors" falsely accusing military officers and soldiers of participating in protests.

In Vietnam, legal regulations for managing and processing information on the internet are increasingly being improved. Recently, a number of subjects have been handled according to the law, such as the case of Nguyen Chi Khuong (residing in Ben Tre) who filmed and posted on Facebook a fabricated clip of "the convoy of National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan visiting Ben Tre" but in fact it was a convoy participating in a defense zone exercise; The case of Nguyen Danh Dung (residing in Thanh Hoa City), the account owner and administrator, operating the Youtube channel "ThienAn TV" distorting and defaming the leaders of the Party and State... The authorities have also detained and handled the subject Ho Van Hai, the creator, administrator, and operator of the blog "BS Ho Hai", Facebook "Ho Hai", posting a number of articles and then quoting comments, with the purpose of framing and guiding readers to misunderstand the case, defaming and attacking the leaders of the Party and State, calling for the destruction of the Vietnamese economy, boycotting the National Assembly election, inciting protests... Currently, with the proactive involvement of the Ministry of Information and Communications, social networks Facebook and YouTube have actively cooperated to remove distorted and fabricated information defaming the leaders of the Party and State. According to Deputy Director of the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information (Ministry of Information and Communications) Le Quang Tu Do: According to international practice, authorities will force service providers to investigate and handle acts of lying and defamation. This is a human rights issue.

However, not many cases have been strictly handled; there are still many violations that defy the law. Public opinion expects and recommends that the authorities, especially law enforcement agencies, must take stronger action and strictly handle those who fabricate and spread false and fabricated information. Legal documents must be quickly amended and supplemented in the direction of specifying violations, strengthening sanctions, and assigning ultimate responsibility to those who spread false rumors, causing damage to the community.

Ethically, the act of spreading false information, defaming the honor and dignity of Party, State and military leaders, even going so far as to fabricate the death of a leader, is an immoral act, unacceptable in a civilized society. It must be criticized and fought against by progressive public opinion, conscience and human morality. There have been cases of spreading false information about the health of Party and State leaders whose truths have been exposed and those who "sow the wind" have had to bear the brunt of public opinion.

Therefore, for each cadre and party member, when faced with fabricated and distorted information, we must always be alert, vigilant, always be the one who knows how to separate the bad from the good, not be affected or influenced by that information. Moreover, we must be immune to bad information, not share or comment to support bad information. With the responsibility of cadres and party members, we must actively propagate and mobilize people not to believe in fabricated and distorted information, fight and criticize those who spread bad information. As for each citizen, we have gradually become accustomed to fabricated information because it appears many times, with familiar tricks, so we need to form the habit of "saying no" to it. Unethical behavior must be fought with social ethical standards, criticized and condemned to repel bad information from each family, each school, each organization, group and the whole society. Let's be smart internet and social media users to isolate and eliminate "junk" information from our lives./.