07 January 2025
An internet law that gives the government power to regulate online content took effect in Vietnam recently. Decree 147 expands government control over access to information on the internet for reasons of ‘national security’ and ‘social order’.
The law expands radically on guidelines from 2021 that codify ethics for social media companies and the public, and rules, issued in a decree in August 2022, that require technology firms to store their users' data locally and set up local offices.
It requires social media platforms providing services to users in Vietnam to store user data and provide it to the authorities on demand. Social media giants like Facebook and TikTok must now verify user accounts using people's phone numbers or personal identification numbers and store that data. The law also requires organisations to take down anything the authorities consider ‘illegal content’ within 24 hours.
The new laws also include curbs on gaming for under-18s, to prevent addiction. Games publishers are expected to enforce a time limit of an hour a game session and not more than 180 minutes a day for all games.
Decree 147 also requires organisations to provide search and content-scanning tools to government authorities upon request. It limits certain functions, like live video streaming, to only verified accounts. As local news media have highlighted, this not only an attacks freedom of expression; it also affects the large number of people earning a living through social media channels.
