Jakarta Globe – AFP, Jan 16, 2015
Hanoi. Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has conceded it is impossible for the communist country to ban social media, urging officials instead to embrace websites like Facebook to spread the government’s message.
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| This Jan. 30, 2014 file photo taken in Washington, DC, shows the splash page for the social media Internet site Facebook. (AFP Photo/Karen Bleier) |
Hanoi. Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has conceded it is impossible for the communist country to ban social media, urging officials instead to embrace websites like Facebook to spread the government’s message.
Sites such
as Facebook have at times been difficult to access in Vietnam, an authoritarian
country which routinely imprisons bloggers and dissidents for criticizing the
regime.
“You here
have all joined social networks, you’ve all got Facebook up on your phones to
read information. So we must make this information correct,” Dung told senior
officials Thursday, the Thanh Nien newspaper reported.
“We cannot
ban it,” he said at the meeting in Hanoi.
Over the
last few years, Vietnam has had one of the fastest rates of Facebook uptake in
the world, and now around a third of the country’s population of 90 million
have an account on the social network.
The
government has always denied blocking the site, and for at least a year
Facebook has been easily accessible in Vietnam without a VPN or other measures.
Dung said
top officials need to use social media to engage with the population more.
“We must
publish accurate information online immediately … Whatever is being said
online, people will believe official information from the government,” he said.
Vietnam’s
communist party controls all newspapers and television networks, and many
citizens prefer to get their news online from blogs or social media, which
contain less propaganda.
But the
quality of the blogs and social media postings is uneven. Some dissident-run
sites offer nuanced reporting on sensitive political topics, other online
commentators spread sensational rumors.
Last week,
in a rare move, authorities denied widespread rumors that a popular senior
communist party official Nguyen Ba Thanh, a former top official in central
Danang City, had been poisoned with radioactive material by a political rival.
“Incorrect
information creates social distraction,” Dung said, adding that the government
would ask ministries to address incorrect information circulating online.
In the
past, Dung has driven through bans on particular blogs, but the move has
usually backfired, triggering a surge of interest in the prohibited sites.
The
harassment, arrest and prosecution of online activists remain widespread in
Vietnam, which is holding scores of bloggers in jail, according to watchdog
Reporters Without Borders.
The
one-party state is regularly denounced by rights groups and Western governments
for its intolerance of political dissent.
Agence
France-Presse
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