Violations on the Internet will be severely dealt with in 2023
In 2023, the Ministry of Information and Communications will focus on handling violations on the Internet, publishing a list of "clean" and "black" content on Vietnam's network.
Increase scanning capacity to 300 million messages/day
According to statistics, the country currently has 72 million social network users, an increase of 7% compared to 2021. There is a lot of information content on the internet that makes it difficult for Internet users to accurately distinguish between real and fake. Therefore, in 2022, the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) has increased the management and scanning capacity of the Cyber Security Monitoring Center to 300 million messages/day, to monitor, measure, and evaluate positive and negative information trends on the internet environment.
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The Ministry of Information and Communications will take strong action against violations on the Internet in 2023. Photo: Anh Dung |
In addition, the Ministry of Information and Communications has developed and published a Handbook on preventing and combating fake news and false information on cyberspace. In 2022, the Ministry's functional units will continue to increase the rate of blocking and removing fake and false information on cross-border platforms, with a rate of over 92%.
“We have changed some approaches to combating cross-border platforms, to request blocking and removal, with an increased rate of violating content. For example, at the request of the Ministry of Information and Communications, in 2022, Youtube blocked and removed 5 reactionary channels from access from Vietnam (these 5 channels have about 1,500 videos). Facebook has also blocked and removed a number of reactionary accounts at the request of the ministry,” said a representative of the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information.
Along with that, the number of social network users in Vietnam increased, reaching about 77 million and the tendency to read news and interact on social networks is more popular than reading on specialized news-providing applications.
Handling the situation of "newspaperization" of general electronic information sites
In the past 11 years, the Ministry of Information and Communications has granted 956 social network licenses (down 11% compared to the same period in 2021) and 1,980 electronic information pages (down 31%). According to Mr. Le Quang Tu Do, Director of the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information, in 2023, along with the implementation of new legal regulations, the Ministry of Information and Communications will focus on handling the situation of "newspaperization" of general electronic information pages and social networks; scanning and handling violations on the Internet; publishing and communicating the list of "clean" content (WhiteList) and "black" content (BlackList) on Vietnam's network...
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Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Thanh Lam expressed his confidence in domestic social networks. Photo: Anh Dung |
“This is an area where the good and the bad are intertwined. Users and viewers today, when going online, have a hard time filtering and distinguishing between newspapers, websites, official news sources, and news sources that require caution. In addition, there is also the strong participation of cross-border social networking platforms, which have previously been considered not to be subject to Vietnamese law. Over the years, the institution has gradually been perfected to manage all cross-border businesses and domestic content service providers on the same legal basis,” said Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Thanh Lam.
Mr. Nguyen Thanh Lam also noted the risks to the business model of general information websites in the face of management changes as well as development trends in the field, and expressed his confidence in domestic social networks. The content of social networks is created by users and on that platform, other transactions will arise.
Currently, Vietnam has nearly 1,000 domestic social networks. When these networks were born, they determined that they could not compete with cross-border platforms, but instead chose to enter niche markets, creating forums for domestic users.
“The coming time will be an opportunity for social networks to truly know who their users are, to interact with real people, and legitimacy on social networks becomes important, because only with legitimacy can transactions have value. Vietnamese social networks have the opportunity to develop, become a complementary ecosystem and even replace other large social networking platforms in the future,” Deputy Minister Nguyen Thanh Lam emphasized./.
