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The Hanoitimes – Vietnam will watch how Facebook fulfills its commitment to complying with Vietnamese law.

Facebook must comply with Vietnamese law and should cooperate with the government in creating a secure and healthy environment, a spokeperson has said.

IT companies like Facebook are required to comply with Vietnamese law

As a foreign-invested company operating in Vietnam, Facebook has commited to complying with Vietnamese law and the government of Vietnam will see how its commitments are fulfilled, Deputy Spokesperson of Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ngo Toan Thang said at a press conference on April 23.

Vietnam has developed digital infrastructure to facilitate the operations of foreign companies and supports them in terms of telecommunications on the condition that they abide by Vietnam’s law and fulfil all tax obligations and social responsibilities, the official noted.

“IT companies should cooperate with the government in creating safe and healthy environment,” Thang said in answering a question by DPA on whether Facebook is required to limit access to contents that are deemed illegal in Vietnam.

On April 21, Reuters reported that Facebook’s local servers in Vietnam were taken offline early this year, slowing local traffic to a crawl until it agreed to significantly increase the censorship of “anti-state” posts for local users.

Vietnam has more than 65 million Facebook users who use this social network as the main platform for both e-commerce and expressions of political dissent, Reuters added.

The Hanoitimes – Foreign digital content providers in Vietnam have some payment options.

Facebook and Google are likely required to pay tax in Vietnam after years of operations in the country without fulfilling their tax obligation as claimed by the Vietnamese government.

Percentage of new digital consumers out of total service consumers in Southeast Asia countries. Source: Google, Temasek, Bain & Company

The foreign digital content providers might make tax payment online via taxation department’s portal or through authorized agents following the Ministry of Finance’s Draft Circular, which is made available for public consultation.

Under Vietnamese rules, foreign firms, which have no fixed business facilities in Vietnam but provide e-commerce services and digital-based business with local partner, are regarded as having residential offices in Vietnam.

Accordingly, Facebook, Google, or Netflix are subject to the new regulation.

With the new regulation, tax agency will provide tax code and payment options, including direct payment or via authorized agents to foreign taxpayers.

So far, a number of foreign e-commerce providers and technology firms working in Vietnam like Facebook, Amazon, YouTube, Netflix (the US), iflix (Malaysia), WeTV, iQiYi, Alibaba (China) make good profit worth billion dollars.

Speaking at an interpellation at the National Assembly in November 2020, Vietnam’s Minister of Information and Communications (MIC) Nguyen Manh Hung said Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple earned billions of dollars in Vietnam but paid no tax.

The situation has prompted some actions by the MIC and the Ministry of Finance.

Vietnam’s Internet economy is expected to reach US$14 billion in 2020 and likely US$52 billion by 2025 with a 29% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), according to the “e-Conomy SEA 2020” report by Google, Temasek, Bain & Company.

Vietnam’s Internet economy likely doubles in 2025. Source: Google, Temasek, Bain & Company

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.

The Hanoitimes – Vietnam should follow the EU’s steps in applying law to better revenue sharing between social media platforms and all content creators including newspapers and magazines.

Total digital advertising turnover in Vietnam would rise to US$630 million by the end of this year, and that of Facebook and Google would go up parallel, reaching a combined US$450 million, according to estimates by ANTS, an integrated programmatic advertising platform, and other sources.

The two tech giants have increasingly gained revenue in Vietnam, sending the local press industry struggling. To make the picture clearer, the online advertising revenue in 2010 in Vietnam was only around US$10 million, of which Google’s and Facebook’s just made up a small amount.
Now the combined revenue of those two largest cross-border platforms in 2018 astonishingly surged to US$387 million, swallowing the biggest portion of online advertising of US$550 million.
In the meantime, the rate of press agencies earning revenue from online advertising plummeted to 31% in 2018 and will continue to fall to 29% in 2019 compared to 81% in 2010.
Also according to a 2018 report of the Central Commission for Communication and Education of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the revenue from online and printed press in Vietnam was VND4.9 trillion (US$210 million) in 2018 and that of television was VND10 trillion (US$429 million).
The figures pose the question about ads business of Facebook and Google as those platforms earned millions of dollars by sharing and citing contents, news articles of local content creators and press agencies but aversely shared the revenue with them, who eventually are accountable to the contents, VietNamNet reported.
Unfortunately, the Vietnamese government is still struggling to tax those revenues of Facebook and Google.
At the beginning of this year, policy expert Nguyen Quang Dong from the Institute for Policy Studies and Communication Development IPS raised his view that Vietnam should follow the EU’s steps in applying law to better revenue sharing between social media platforms and all content creators including newspapers and magazines.
The law is considered a move to guarantee the rights of press agencies which play significant role in providing contents for the social media platforms.
The dominace of social media platforms
The US-based Pew Research Institute’s reports showed that 80% of Vietnamese considered social media positive while just a mere 6% thought it is negative. As a result, despite some undeniable negative social consequences it has caused, social media is still regarded as an essential source of information.
Under the Facebook’s algorithm, users mostly see in their news feed stories which are relevant to them as it ranks the contents based on users’ reactions on previous posts. This could lead to the display of a part of the truth, not the whole of it, which negatively affect people and businesses. However, media experts said, this algorithm may become strength of mainstream press.
These press agencies are unable to compete with the social platforms in terms of speed but it is the accuracy and the honesty of the delivered information that guarantee its value and existence, according to Chairman and CEO of Le Group of Companies Le Quoc Vinh.
By 2021, it is forecast that over 3 billion people in the world would be subscribers of social media platforms while Vietnam would see 57.43% of its population using Facebook, 12.81% watching YouTube and the numbers continue to rise.

The Hanoitimes – The program is designed exclusively for Vietnam amid a rise in Facebook users in the country.

The “Facebook for Vietnam” program that puts existing and newly created programs in Vietnam under one hashtag is a way that the world’s largest social media platform has launched to assist the digital transformation in the Southeast Asian country.

Daniel Kritenbrink, US Ambassador to Vietnam. Photo: Facebook Vietnam

In partnership with the US Mission to Vietnam partners, this program is part of activities to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam-US relations.

To be launched from May to December 2020, the campaign with the hashtag #fb4vn is a first-of-its-kind comprehensive program designed exclusively for Vietnam.

The program includes five pillars namely Innovation, Safety and Digital Literacy, Community, Cities, and Digital Economy.

#fb4Innovation covers start-up supporting initiatives, programmers, and innovation-driven campaigns.

#fb4Safety and Digital Literacy focuses on safety on social networks, including protective measures for women and children, prevention of child abuse, and digital skills equipped for youth.

#fb4Community includes initiatives to bring people together and use technology for good.

#fb4Cities supports localities in their efforts to build e-government and smart cities through coordinated programs in various fields.

#fb4Economy contributes to the business community, mostly small- and medium-sized enterprises, and promote tourism and education in Vietnam after Covid-19.

Number of Facebook users in Vietnam from 2017 to 2023. Source: Statista

“As we celebrate the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations this year, the “Facebook for Vietnam” campaign, which further expands Facebook’s socio-economic development projects throughout the country, demonstrates both Facebook’s and the United States’ long-term commitment to the prosperity of Vietnam,” said Daniel Kritenbrink, US ambassador to Vietnam.

Nguyen Anh Nguyet, Facebook’s Vietnam Public Policy Director, said Vietnam, with a digital economy that is growing at a remarkable pace, is an important market for Facebook.

With this campaign, Facebook wants to work more closely with the government, partners, non-profit organizations, and others to help Vietnam quickly recover from the global health crisis while creating opportunities for people to build digital literacy skills, helping businesses grow and creating jobs in the digital economy, she said.

In recent years, Facebook has collaborated with different partners in Vietnam to implement projects that help boost the nation’s socio-economic growth. Such projects include #SheMeansBusiness & “Facebook Community Boost” that provided training and consultation for more than 10,000 small and medium-sized enterprises, including 6,500 businesswomen. In 2019, the “We Think Digital” program offered digital skills training to 244,813 secondary schoolchildren and 1,277 teachers in 13 provinces and cities across Vietnam.

Vietnam is among top 10 countries having the largest Facebook using community, with 47.1 million users.

The Hanoitimes – Posting others’ personal photos on Facebook without consent is now considered an infringement of privacy in Vietnam.

Facebook users in Vietnam will face a fine of between VND10 million and VND20 million (US$426-851) for posting others’ personal photos without their permission, ZingNew reported, citing the Vietnamese government’s new decree which came into effect from April 15.

Nguyen Ngoc Viet, a lawyer from the Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association, told Zing that in accordance with Article 32 of the Civil Code, individuals have the right to their photos and the use of their photos must be agreed by owners. Therefore, posting others’ photos on Facebook without consent is considered an infringement of privacy.

Illustrative photo. Source: Reuters

Viet added that a fine of US$426-851 is also applied for a number of other similar acts such as unauthorized access, use and destruction of information or system of information; provision, storing or use of digital information to threaten, harass, misrepresent, slander or defame individuals or organizations.

Those who disclose personal privacy or State organization’s classified information on social media without the party’s consent, which are not serious enough for penal liability, will be fined VND20-30 million (US$851-1,277).

The new decree provides penalties of between US$426 and US$851 for people who share false or libelous information that defames individuals or organizations.

The same penalty also applies to detailed descriptions of horrific acts or accidents, sharing gambling information or images of Vietnam maps infringing national sovereignty

Besides, Facebook users will face penalties of between VND30 million and VN50 million (US$1,277-2,200) for taking advantage of online communication on the Internet and telecommunication networks to misappropriate up to VND2 million (US$85.13).

The decree also suggests punishment of between VND70 million and VND100 million (US$2,980-4,257) for people who create fake Facebook pages or hack into the accounts of organizations or individuals to misappropriate up to US$85.13.

Vietnam has more than half of population having internet access and owning social media accounts. Facebook is the most popular social network in the country.

A study by the Vietnam Program for Internet and Society at the Vietnam National University in Hanoi showed that nearly 80% of the 1,000 internet users surveyed said they were either victims or had witnessed public slandering on Facebook or other social media platforms.

The Vietnamese government has taken various steps to crack down on crimes on social media and worked with global social media platforms to enhance internet management.