General Information Center – Vaguely cheating

(Baonghean) -A few days ago, the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information Management, Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) issued a document requesting the Ministry's inspectors and the Department of Information and Communications of some provinces to consider and handle violations of 20 violating electronic information sites. Among them are websites that violate press copyright in citing sources of electronic newspapers such as baomoi.com, vietbao.vn, bongda.com.vn... At the same time, this Department also requested the authorities of some provinces to consider handling 15 other unlicensed electronic information sites such as ngoisao.vn, eva.vn, tintuconline.vn...

It is a bit late, but the resolute attitude of the authorities towards the activities of many electronic information sites that violate information and press activities is necessary in the current situation.

It is undeniable that in recent times, electronic information sites have met the information, promotion and marketing needs of agencies, businesses as well as other political, social and professional organizations; at the same time, it has also partly satisfied the information needs of a part of the public.

Besides the above positive aspects, in recent years, many electronic information sites, especially general electronic information sites, have committed violations such as "stealing", cutting articles or taking entire articles from other newspapers without clearly stating the source.

Most of them are sensational, clickbait news, and even publish absurd, “tabloid” comments to stimulate the vulgar tastes of a segment of readers. Therefore, a segment of the press public easily misunderstands that these are licensed press agencies with proper operational orientations.

Meanwhile, according to Decree 97/2008-ND/CP of the Government, "A general electronic information page is an electronic information page on the Internet of an organization or enterprise that provides general information on politics, economics, culture, and society based on information extracted from official sources of press agencies or from electronic information agencies of the Party and State.

According to the authorities, Nghe An currently has nearly 1,100 websites with the domain name “.vn”. Among them, there are general information websites that operate just like a press agency. They also have an “editorial office” with a team called “editors”, “reporters” and also issue letters of introduction like a real “newspaper office”.

These “editorial offices” even made “reporter cards” with designs identical to current press cards for people carrying the names of reporters and journalists to go to areas in the province, including remote areas in Ky Son, Tuong Duong, and Que Phong districts to “collect materials to write news and articles”, but in reality, they forced the establishments to make advertisements or disguised advertisements.

This not only has a negative impact on the press environment but also causes public outrage. Recently, the authorities have worked with 3 units that violated regulations in electronic information activities and requested 1 unit to report and explain, but it seems that the above handling is not commensurate with their intentional violations. The evidence is that some general electronic information sites in Nghe An still have similar violations. And, not long ago, Nghe An Newspaper also sent an official dispatch requesting the website nghean24h.vn to stop "copying" and cutting news and articles from Nghe An Newspaper without permission.

Although it is known that managing information in the virtual world (not to mention blogs and other social networking sites) is not easy, but for general electronic information sites without a license or operating in violation of regulations in Nghe An, they are already within the reach of the management agency. The problem is how to handle and the attitude to handle it!

Viet Long