'Increasing resistance, self-immunity' in cyberspace

Hostile forces take full advantage of social networks

In the last century, when science and technology were not yet developed, hostile forces sabotaged the Vietnamese revolution in quite manual ways such as distributing leaflets, calling for large gatherings, and spreading oral propaganda... However, in the current period, they are thoroughly taking advantage of the strong development of science and technology in our country to sabotage, especially on the Internet.social network.

Hostile forces have taken advantage of the advantages of social networks to spread bad and toxic information. Illustrative photo

The anti-government and political opportunists are supported by hostile foreign forces, so they are very knowledgeable about information technology and have plenty of time and money to sabotage on social networks. At the time when Facebook was "dominating", terrorist and reactionary organizations such as "Viet Tan", "Provisional National Government of Vietnam", "Vietnamese Dynasty" quickly established Fanpages and groups to post a lot of distorted information about the situation in Vietnam. They continuously used "tricks" to attract members to participate. Meanwhile, the social network usage skills of Vietnamese people were mostly subjective and did not fully understand the provisions of the law, so many people unintentionally "broadcast" them.

When Fanpages and groups are disabled by our cyber security forces, they attack by building video platforms with harmful content. Thousands of distorted, false, and hostile videos are posted on social networks such as YouTube, Tiktok, and Facebook Watch. These clips "follow" search engines on the Internet. If someone searches or accesses with related "keywords", the clips will automatically appear in applications on the user's phone or computer.

Every time our country has political events or hot social issues, they create sideline clips with completely fabricated information to steer public opinion. Their purpose is to blacken and attack the Party's ideological foundation, the Party's position and leadership role in the State and society, the goals and path to socialism, the work of building and defending the Fatherland of our people under the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Many articles and clips are also constructed in a pseudo-Marxist, "pseudo-scientific" style to distort the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's policies and laws, and deny the great achievements of our people under the Party's leadership in the process of innovation and international integration.

Hostile forces use social networks to propagate distorted information to sabotage the Vietnamese State. Illustrative photo: Document

They also carry out batches.fabricated propaganda, such as "secret palace stories" to defame leaders, distort the background, life, and career of leaders, senior leaders of the Party and State, in order to deny the people, deny the Marxist ideology and the leadership role of the Communist Party of Vietnam. They do it in a "slow and steady" manner, promoting the process of "self-evolution" and "self-transformation" within the Party, among cadres, Party members and people with the aim of destroying the Party's ideological foundation, reducing people's trust in the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

Responsibility of each cadre and party member

Faced with strong sabotage by hostile forces, protecting the Party's ideological foundation in cyberspace requires the participation of every cadre, party member and Vietnamese citizen.

At the macro level, the 13th National Party Congress directly mentioned and emphasized the need tomanagement and development of information in cyberspace, including the fight against erroneous and hostile views in cyberspace, contributing to protecting and maintaining the Party's ideological position. We have developed the Cyber ​​Security Law to protect cyber security for the national security information system; prevent and handle acts of cyber security infringement; deploy cyber security protection activities and regulate the responsibilities of agencies, organizations and individuals. Many units and localities have assigned specialized staff to monitor and grasp the situation and developments on social networks. Departments, branches, unions and authorities at all levels have stepped up propaganda to the people about the risks when participating in social networks...

Officers and soldiers of Nghe An Police regularly stay close to the people and the grassroots to excellently complete assigned tasks. Photo: Tran Lam

However, the most important issue is that each citizen must "self-resist and self-immunize" themselves against bad and toxic information. To do so, we must identify the increasingly sophisticated and cunning forms and methods of sabotage of hostile forces. From there, we must create a habit of being cautious when posting, commenting, and sharing information on social networks. Sometimes, it is just a humorous clip, but hostile forces have inserted a few images that distort the leader and the situation of the country, causing viewers to waver. Sometimes, it is just a landscape photo but is attached with a link, users only need to touch the photo and the device will automatically lead to a website with reactionary and distorted content. Reactionary subjects even hack the accounts of famous people to post contrary information to attract and steer public opinion...

Social network users need to be wary of bad and toxic information. Illustration: Document

In fact, influencing ideology is a long-term process; sometimes the person being influenced cannot even distinguish which ideological stream he or she is on. Therefore, each cadre and party member needs to continuously study and improve their political theory level; regularly improve the quality of self-criticism and criticism in party activities and in mass organizations, and overcome political ambiguity. In that process, studying and following Ho Chi Minh's ideology, morality, and style is a regular and long-term task.

The task of preventing, repelling, and refuting distorted, false, and hostile information and protecting the Party's ideological foundation is an important, regular, difficult, and drastic task. Just one minute of negligence or loss of vigilance can result in immeasurable consequences. And that is not the responsibility of any individual, but the regular, fundamental, and long-term task of the Party Committee, Party organization, political system, and of each cadre and Party member.