Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Bac Son stated that dealing with Facebook accounts impersonating Party and State leaders is difficult because the servers are located abroad.

During discussions at the 9th session on the draft Law on Information Security, many National Assembly deputies expressed concerns about the negative consequences of social media on young people as well as on socio-political life.

According to Minister Nguyen Bac Son, this requires legal documents to be designed in a way that both helps manage information security and ensures the freedom and democratic rights of the people.

The suicide of a 15-year-old girl and the issue of cybersecurity.

Minister Nguyen Bac Son stated that to ensure information security, each country has many different laws regulating it. For example, Australia and New Zealand have separate laws to ensure the safety of undersea fiber optic cables. Regarding the security of personal information, countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Thailand have enacted their own laws.

Vietnam is only now drafting a law, but it's consolidating everything, including cybersecurity, into a single law. Some content that other countries have separate laws on is included in just one chapter. Nevertheless, we still have to do this, and it's a major challenge for the drafting body to ensure the law is feasible and guarantees safety in the online environment.

Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Bac Son

Referring to the case of a 15-year-old girl in Dong Nai who committed suicide due to unbearable public pressure after her boyfriend posted a sex video of her on Facebook, the Minister stated that such information was private between the two individuals. The boyfriend's actions violated ethics and social responsibility and need to be dealt with. This also raises the issue of online information security, which state management agencies must address, including the responsibility of the Ministry of Information and Communications.

"That young man has been prosecuted and will be severely punished by the investigating authorities. He disseminated harmful information that damaged members of society, so he needs to be dealt with both educationally and criminally," Mr. Nguyen Bac Son emphasized.

From a management perspective, the Minister stated that all network operators are advised to quickly take technical measures to block similar content upon detection, in order to avoid unfortunate consequences like those that have recently occurred.

Regarding the individual responsibility of each person when participating in social networks, the law is also designed to enhance the dissemination of information to raise awareness of self-protection; and to encourage organizations and individuals to post positive information that is in accordance with the law and social ethics online.

"We all need to be conscious of posting positive information online. When we discover negative information that significantly impacts society, we should quickly report it to help authorities take more timely and effective preventative measures. Because the increasing volume of access and spread of negative information will create pressure and may lead to a deadlock," the Minister noted.

Difficult to deal with Facebook impersonating high-ranking officials.

Emphasizing the crucial role of state management agencies in combating harmful information and propaganda, Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Bac Son stated that since the regulations on spokespersons and information provision were implemented, ministries, departments, and localities have proactively provided information more regularly, thus limiting the spread of misinformation.

“Previously, press conferences might have been held only once every three months, but now ministries and agencies must provide public information monthly on their websites. While previously, information with a significant impact on society would only be provided two days later, now any information that has a major impact on society must be provided immediately. However, some units have not implemented this well, so the Prime Minister recently issued directives and reminders,” Minister Nguyen Bac Son stated.

"Now, talking about banning impersonation on Facebook is challenging because implementing sanctions to prohibit it is difficult. Society is moving towards a situation where all behaviors can be managed, and in reality, authorities are also trying to find ways to address this. We encourage freedom of information, but freedom must be within the framework of the law," the Minister emphasized.

The Constitution recognizes that all citizens have the right to freedom of information, freedom of speech, and freedom to access and provide information, but if this freedom leads to harming the interests and freedoms of others, then it must be punished.

According to the Minister of Information and Communications, everyone has the right to freely create a Facebook account, but using a personal Facebook account to post defamatory information about others is a violation of the law and infringes on the freedom of others, and will therefore be condemned and fought against; not to mention that if one speaks ill of the Party or the State, they must be severely punished.

Currently, there are many personal Facebook pages impersonating other people, including Party and State leaders. However, according to Mr. Nguyen Bac Son, managing these pages is very difficult because the servers are located abroad.

"According to Decree 72, when registering to provide online information services, service providers are required to place at least one server in Vietnam to facilitate management and easily resolve any arising issues. There have been many objections, but for the purpose of protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the people and national security, we must still do it and are determined to do it," the Minister emphasized.

According to Vov.vn