In Nghe An, many leaders at all levels and sectors use Facebook as a channel to both grasp information and public opinion, and to convey messages that need to be propagated about the policies of the Party and the State, as well as to orientate issues that "netizens" are interested in, from the issue of socialization of education at the beginning of the school year, the issue of populism, to international current affairs that occur every day. Some of the "Facebookers" include: Nguyen Van Thong - Standing Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee; Nguyen Dinh Hung - Chief of the Provincial Party Committee Office; Trinh Van Nha - Deputy Secretary of the District Party Committee, Chairman of the People's Committee of Thanh Chuong District...
Using Facebook since 2012, comrade Trinh Van Nha - Deputy Secretary of the District Party Committee, Chairman of the People's Committee of Thanh Chuong District (Nghe An) is considered a reputable Facebooker in the online community, especially with cadres, party members, and people of Thanh Chuong District. Through his personal Facebook page named "Trinh Nha", with a friendly writing style, simple language, and "stuttered" local dialect, he regularly posts news and articles about events in the district; at the same time, promptly posts "status" warnings against bad and toxic information.
On June 23, 2023, the Chairman of Thanh Chuong District People's Committee posted on his personal page the following messages: "There is no job where you just sit at home and share a few links and earn a few hundred thousand a day. That's easy, everyone is rich. If you see a company recruiting like that, go online and find out if it's a scam or not." Or "No police, prosecutors, or courts call people directly to work. If necessary, tell them to send an invitation with the agency's red stamp to your home address and then we'll figure it out"; "There is no Western guy who works as a pilot, a beautiful woman, who feels lonely, then falls in love with you, hasn't met you, but sends you a whole box of gifts, and forces you to pay for the import fee";...
The warning from the official Facebook address of the Chairman of the People's Committee of Thanh Chuong district has helped local people to be more vigilant when participating in social networks, especially in the face of the scams of bad guys that have lasted for a long time, many people have "fallen into the trap", and Nghe An is no exception; even a man in Vinh city was scammed out of 12 billion VND when a female subject impersonated a Vietnamese Canadian scammer online, which was recently exposed by Nghe An police. As of September 29, 2023, Trinh Nha's Facebook "post" had 1,466 likes, 72 comments and especially 1,283 shares.
Recently, in the "tụt" posted on September 24, 2023, the Chairman of Nhut district had an official dispatch from Project Management Board 4 sent to the Vietnam Road Administration requesting the Ministry of Transport to allow the preparation of a Report proposing the investment policy for the Giang River Bridge Project in the area. This is really good news for the people of Thanh Chuong district, especially the Cat Van area, because the current Giang River suspension bridge has been put into use for nearly 36 years and has seriously degraded, becoming a traffic congestion point, posing a potential risk of traffic safety for people and vehicles crossing the bridge. A few years ago, a serious accident occurred at this Giang River bridge. When the information was posted, just 2 days later, the "tụt" of the Chairman of Thanh Chuong District People's Committee received 1,282 likes, hearts, and dozens of shares.
Also using social networks effectively, considering this as an environment to interact directly with people, through Messenger (Facebook's chat application), the District Chairman in Nghe An regularly receives messages from people reflecting on many areas from granting Land Use Rights Certificates to environmental sanitation work;... Right at the time of talking to Nghe An Newspaper reporters, a citizen texted the Chairman of Thanh Chuong District People's Committee to reflect on the situation of garbage accumulating in the central lake of the district town after the rain. Comrade Trinh Nha responded to the citizen and directly discussed with the leaders of Thanh Chuong town to handle it;...
The Chairman of Thanh Chuong District People's Committee is also an administrator, participating in many groups on social networks such as Facebook, Zalo, such as he directly established the Zalo group "Thanh Chuong Public Servant" with members who are cadres, civil servants in the political system of the whole district, teachers to inform, share timely leadership and management work; actively participate in online associations and groups of Thanh Chuong compatriots in Ho Chi Minh City and the southern provinces, in Hanoi, thereby providing official and timely information about the situation in his hometown. The influence of the spread is therefore also great, contributing to building a strong, united Thanh Chuong compatriot community, with many meaningful activities towards the homeland.
“Necessary, important, effective and practical”, comrade Trinh Van Nha summarized in 8 words when talking about the use of social networks. The Chairman of the People's Committee of Thanh Chuong district (Nghe An) further analyzed that through the use of social networks, leaders, cadres and civil servants can simply say “go online incognito” to grasp multi-dimensional information in various fields; grasp public opinion, thoughts and feelings of the majority of people from different walks of life, especially when there are problems and events in the area; thereby, serving the leadership and management work more promptly and effectively; at the same time, proactively informing and propagating, especially in difficult times such as natural disasters, floods, and epidemics. Not to mention that social networks are also schools when through other social network accounts, especially those of intellectuals and prestigious people, they can refer to new knowledge and insights to contribute to improving work efficiency.
Of course, as the head of a district government with a large population and large area, the time will certainly be very busy? "I have to be diligent. When there is information from the people, I have to take advantage of the lunch break or late afternoon to handle it right away," comrade Trinh Van Nha confided when answering reporters; at the same time, sharing more experience that when using social networks, users in general, especially key leaders, sometimes have to accept the pressure of public opinion, and many times the pressure of the majority is not necessarily the truth, so we have to find ways to adjust, orient, propagate accurately, promptly, fight, and refute bad, toxic or inaccurate information.
In Nghi Van commune, Nghi Loc district (Nghe An), a locality with nearly 11,000 people, over 60% of whom are Catholics with 2 parishes and 1 independent church, comrade Thai Viet Diep - Standing Deputy Secretary of the Commune Party Committee is considered a leader who actively uses Facebook to serve his work. On his personal Facebook address named "Thai Viet Diep", he regularly updates the "breath of life" of the locality, especially the production situation, the implementation of Project 06 on developing data applications on population, identification and electronic authentication to serve national digital transformation in the period 2022 - 2025, with a vision to 2030;...
Talking to reporters, Comrade Diep said: The Party Committee and the Commune Government are very interested in information and propaganda work on social networks. The Commune has established a Social Network Working Group with 4 members, including: Vice Chairman of the Commune People's Committee, Secretary of the Commune Youth Union and Deputy Secretary of the Commune Youth Union, with him as the Group Leader to propagate, at the same time, grasp information through social networks in the area, thereby, promptly reporting to the Party Committee and the Government on issues in the area to serve the most effective leadership and direction.
“Thanks to effective information and propaganda, especially through social networks, the solidarity of Catholics and non-Catholics in the area has been increasingly consolidated. The commune reached the new rural target in 2019 and is striving to reach the advanced new rural target in 2023,” said the Standing Deputy Secretary of the Nghi Van Commune Party Committee.
“The sooner the information is disseminated, the faster it will dominate social awareness. If we come later, especially if we let fake, bad, and toxic information from hostile and destructive forces dominate social awareness, it will be extremely difficult for us to propagate and explain again,” said comrade Phan Minh Ly, Head of the Department of Political Theory and Party History, Propaganda Department of Nghe An Provincial Party Committee.
Comrade Phan Minh Ly is one of the active party members who have written articles on his personal Facebook, directly stating his views and fighting against the distorted and destructive arguments of hostile forces, disgruntled and opposing subjects not only on issues in Nghe An but also across the country. Because according to the female officer of the Propaganda Department of Nghe An Provincial Party Committee, the nature of cyberspace is borderless, so an incident that occurs somewhere, when posted on cyberspace, is no longer an incident in that locality or unit, but is the common concern of the online community everywhere. Hostile forces also take advantage of that to attack and sabotage.
Talking about using social networks to directly fight against opposing forces, comrade Phan Minh Ly shared that there were times when she had to face many difficulties and pressures. However, from practical work, especially from the HD981 drilling rig incident in 2015, Formosa in 2016; the National Assembly considered the Draft Law on Special Administrative-Economic Units (Special Economic Zone Law), passed the Law on Cyber Security, all in 2018, showing that on social networks at that time, there was a lot of fake news, false information leading to consequences in terms of communication, affecting ideology, spirit, security, and order in society, the female Propaganda officer gradually got used to it and had articles to refute and fight online, to provide official and complete information.
Sharing about the current situation of a number of cadres, party members, civil servants and public employees being indifferent, not defending what is right, not fighting what is wrong, even sharing and "following" the crowd without clearly understanding the incident, or without basis, affecting social order and safety, comrade Phan Minh Ly said that there are people who are still hesitant because their knowledge is not deep, not enough, not sure enough to refute, do not have time to follow the entire development of the event (following trends on the internet). In addition, to fight directly on cyberspace effectively, it is necessary to have the ability to express with an appropriate writing style. However, if the above factors are not enough, cadres, party members, civil servants and public employees also need to be alert and clear-headed to recognize which information is correct, accurate, and which information is fake, fabricated, and distorted to avoid being used by hostile forces and political opportunists to entice and incite. Once you have identified the nature of the problem or incident, you just need to share information from official sources or comment, show your “like”, and heart” to articles that fight and refute to create great resonance in cyberspace.
It is also a very effective source of encouragement and support for those who fight directly like female party member Phan Minh Ly. Because as she shared, "even the voices that are right and truthful, if they are alone, without companions and supporters", the views expressed will be very difficult to spread, even the "tut" owner will be opposed, "stoned", and mentally terrorized by the fake accounts of hostile forces.
To increase resistance and effectively fight against bad and toxic information, according to comrade Nguyen Ho Canh - Secretary of the Trung Hop Block Party Cell, Hung Dung Ward, Vinh City, it is necessary to provide information and guidance on information processing to cadres and party members in general, retired senior cadres in particular, promptly and accurately, especially sensitive information that many people are interested in, such as the handling of corruption cases at the central level, at the provincial and district levels; violations of retired cadres, cadre work;...
From the practice of teaching and research, Master Ngo Ba Cuong - Head of the Party Building Department, Nghe An Provincial Political School, commented: In reality, there are cadres and party members who spend a lot of time interacting on social networks, but due to their curiosity, they are unintentionally deceived by hostile forces in terms of information; falling into the "trap" of websites with bad and toxic information. In that context, cadres and party members themselves need to be sensitive and able to identify if the information is toxic. "I think that to protect the Party's ideological foundation, we must first protect ourselves. Cadres and party members must have skills, use information technology, collect, process and exploit information applications to be effective when participating in the struggle", said Master Ngo Ba Cuong.
Firmly protecting the Party's ideological foundation is a continuous, regular and long-term task; a prerequisite task of the entire political system, in which each cadre and party member plays the role of the subject. Each cadre, party member, civil servant and public employee in the political system must first of all have a correct awareness of their role and responsibility when participating in social networks to resonate into a unified block, a strong enough force to prevent and repel bad, toxic and destructive information from hostile forces; it is necessary to aim to be one of the active information and propaganda channels on social networks.
