Vietnam is in the middle of a struggle to define the boundaries of free speech and censorship.
In recent years, the government has been making moves to increase control over the Internet and punish dissenters.
The number of jailed bloggers and activists tripled to at least 19 people from 2015 to 2016, Human Rights Watch says. In 2017, Vietnam’s leadership proposed that Facebook purify “toxic” content and accounts it says are impersonating government officials. And last year, the government passed a controversial cybersecurity law that requires web service providers to remove content within 24 hours of a request from either of the top information or public security ministries.
American social media giant Facebook plays a crucial role in shaping the future of these negotiations over the limits of free speech. About half of Vietnam’s population, or 45 million people, use Facebook.
A local journalist, whom I won’t name, says “we’re still lucky to have Facebook.” He frequently uses Facebook to find news sources. New limits on Facebook might prevent people from talking out of fear of retaliation from the government.
Though he focuses on foreign policy issues and loves politics, he can’t write critically about it because he works for a Communist Party mouthpiece newspaper. Even so, in a sign that perhaps his paper has more liberal editorial judgment, sometimes the government doesn’t like his stories. For now, officials still seem to tolerate his stories that take a critical tone.
For those stories, he gets invited to “coffee” (interestingly, a sign of how deep coffee culture goes in Vietnam because in China, you get invited to “tea”).
“You know, no one reads your newspaper, it’s boring,” he tells officials. “So let me be your ‘propaganda.’ Let me be free. Sometimes I might write a bad story that the government doesn’t like. But then, I sometimes I might write one that’s good. So let me be free.”
They seem to accept this. “Okay,” they say.
But how much longer will they keep this attitude? How much is Vietnam trying to copy China’s censorship model? Does it have the financial and technological resources and political willpower, as China’s Communist Party does, to implement a large-scale crackdown on opinions the government doesn’t like?
This journalist would certainly face challenges reporting what he says he knows from his government sources about the complicated situation in the contested waters of the South China Sea.
Vietnam, which has disputed China for years about what territory it controls in the Spratly islands, has recently changed its policy, he says. It’s backing down from aggravating China due to international pressure to avoid conflict, he says. Still, it’s clear there are voices in the government resisting any drastic change to hedge their position. Vietnam hasn’t withdrawn military ships. It’s simply staying quiet.
“Vietnam is wrong, it knows it’s wrong,” he says.
References:
- New York Times: “Facebook Faces a New World as Officials Rein In a Wild Web”
- BBC (blocked in Vietnam without VPN): “Vietnam army hires censors to fight ‘internet chaos’
- Tuoi Tre: “Facebook policy head, Vietnamese minister discuss ways to curb ‘toxic content’”
- Human Rights Watch: “Vietnam, Events of 2016”
- Human Rights Watch: “Vietnam: Withdraw Problematic Cyber Security Law”
