Facebook live video streaming

GoStream will use the new tremendous funding to expand operations

GoStream was founded in 2017 by three seasoned engineers with track records in digital enablement. GoStream is an easy-to-use platform for any type of user, even for those with little or no technical knowledge. It enables users to reach a larger audience from different platforms to increase visibility and get more views. Currently, the company is serving multiple corporate clients and facilitating over 100,000 livestreaming sessions daily.

GoStream is dedicated to providing an interactive experience that encourages viewer participation in live videos. This increases viewer engagement and contributes to the building of a larger and more loyal community that follows a user’s content.

Marketwise, social networks are recognised as the next most common channel for online shopping in Vietnam, just behind e-commerce sites. According to PwC Social Surveys, Vietnam ranked seventh in the world in the number of Facebook users (68 million) which accounted for 68.7 per cent of the country’s entire population. In 2020, Vietnam’s “digital economy” reached $14 billion and is expected to grow to $52 billion in 2025, according to a recent report by Google, Bain & Company, and Temasek.

Trung D. Hoang, partner at VinaCapital Ventures, commented, “We are excited to invest in GoStream, which has been leading the way in integrating livestreaming across a number of sectors. Their innovative streaming technology is helping more businesses reach more viewers and customers, and we look forward to working with them as they further expand their capabilities and play an even greater role in Vietnam’s growing digitalisation.”

In November 2020, GoStudio – a product of GoStream Technology JSC – won first prize at Vietnam Techfest 2020. The contest’s organising committee recognised the product’s ease-of-use and adaptability to a range of online channels, including social commerce (livestream commerce), online training (e-learning), online entertainment (live gameshows). This became especially important as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world. GoStudio does not require software downloading or installation and it is stable and compatible with popular web browsers, enabling more users to apply livestreaming across various sectors.

The Hanoitimes – Vietnam has long requested foreign social media platforms to restrict content that it considers potentially toxic and harmful to its interests.

Vietnam has advanced the fight against toxic content on the cyber space, with the quantity of violating content removed from Facebook and Google so far this year hitting a record high.

Facebook users in Vietnam in January 2020. Source: NapoleonCat

As of October 2020, Facebook removed 2,036 articles, up 500% from that in 2019, the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) said in a recent report sent to the National Assembly.

Facebook has removed 286 accounts that falsify profiles of the country’s leaders and disseminate fake news that incites subversion of state power, causes hostile, and defames the leaders, according to the report.

To give a hand to the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, Facebook has removed 100% of fake news related to the global health crisis, including 11 accounts forging the Ministry of Health and 141 entries distorting the situation in Vietnam.

The rate by Google has reached 90% so far this year. In the first three quarter of 2020, Google’s YouTube has blocked and removed 10,877 videos out of 24,617 violating items from 2017 to September 2020.

In another move, between July 2017 and September 2020, Google has blocked access to 24 out of 62 YouTube channels that contain 11,212 defiant videos.

Apple Inc., meanwhile, has required app distributors on digital distribution platform App Store to get license by Vietnam’s authorities for their products. As a result, as many as 28 unlicensed and violating games have been removed at the MIC’s request.

The ministry attributed the results to its requesting Facebook and Google to follow Vietnam’s law in monitoring, minimizing, blocking and removing fake, harmful, defamatory, offensive or objectionable information.

In addition, disseminators of fake news in Vietnam have been strictly punished by the Vietnamese authorities.

Most-used social media platforms in Vietnam. Source: We Are Social and Hootsuite

Long-lasting request

Vietnam has for long requested Facebook and Google monitor and remove content that the country’s authorities reckon “inappropriate,” “distorting” and “slanderous”.

Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung, who ran military-run Viettel Group, a giant Vietnamese multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Hanoi, has vowed to make foreign social networks abide by Vietnamese law while facilitating their operations in the country.

Mr. Hung said in an interpellation at a session of the National Assembly in November 2019 that Vietnam welcomed foreign social network developers as long as they conform with Vietnam’s law.

Meanwhile, the minister has made efforts to promote locally-developed social networks that can compete with foreign peers.

Social Media Stats Vietnam September 2019-September 2020. Source: Statcounter

In Vietnam, entries on social network or pieces of news that are believed to be fake, harmful, defamatory, offensive or objectionable are subject to restrictions.

Early last year, Vietnam accused Facebook of violating a new cybersecurity law by allowing users to post anti-government comments on the platform.

The cybersecurity law that came into force early 2019 requires foreign companies such as Facebook and Google to set up representative offices and store data in Vietnam.

In the country of 97 million people, over 60 million use Facebook as the main platform for both e-commerce and expressions of their own views.

The number of users makes Facebook the unchallenged leader in Vietnam’s social media.

Unlike in Western countries, where Facebook’s popularity is decreasing among youth, Vietnamese teens remain loyal to the network.

More than 90% of Vietnamese social media users connect at least once a day to Facebook.

Phan Bui Bao Thi (Photo: laodong.vn)

Quang Tri (VNA) – Police in the central province of Quang Tri on February 10 launched legal proceedings against two men for compiling and spreading documents with defamatory contents via social networks.

The documents were posted on Facebook accounts like Thu Ha and Hoang Le, and such fanpages as Ly Duong Tu, Quang Tri 357, and Tin Quang Tri 246 (Quang Tri news 246).

Those articles, photos and video clips have contents defaming and insulting the prestige of individuals, including some leaders of Quang Tri province, ministries and centrally-run agencies.

They have harmed the leaders’ prestige and dignity as well as the role, position and function of State agencies for a long time, triggering concern among Party members, officials and the public, while affecting political security in the locality.

Local competent forces on February 4 stopped 56-year-old Le Anh Dung , residing in An Phu ward, district 2, Ho Chi Minh City, while he was on the way from Dong Ha city, Quang Tri province, to HCM City.

They found documents stored in Dung’s mobile phone proving that he had directly published the documents on social networks .

Dung’s accomplice is Phan Bui Bao Thi, 50, from Son Tra district, the central city of Da Nang, who is working at the Giao duc & Thoi dai (The Education and Times) newspaper.

Thi confessed that he and Dung wrote many articles defaming Quang Tri leaders and posted more than 10,000 pages on social networks.

The local police on February 5-6 decided to detain the duo for abusing the rights to freedom and democracy, and violating the State’s interests, as well as legal rights and interests of organisations and individuals as prescribed in Article 331 of the Penal Code./.