When security forces raided the village of Dong Tam early last year, Vietnamese blogger Bui Thi Minh Hang livestreamed an interview with a woman whose 3-year-old child was exposed to tear gas.   Hang used social media to report on the raid — part of a longstanding land dispute. But the blogger’s posts were quickly removed from Facebook and YouTube and a few hours later, she was arrested. Hang was detained for eight hours and questioned about her posts.   The arrest wasn’t a first for FILE – Bui Thi Minh Hang shouts during an anti-China protest in downtown Hanoi, July 24, 2011.Facebook notices sent to Hang and viewed by VOA say that she “violated community standards.” The blogger appealed but says she has not heard back from Facebook.  Hang is one of several Vietnamese social media users including journalists, activists and bloggers who told VOA they have had posts removed or accounts locked, amid increasing online censorship in Vietnam.  Amnesty International has described Facebook and YouTube as “hunting grounds for censors, military cyber-troops and state-sponsored trolls.” In a report last month, the rights organization said the platforms are “increasingly complicit” with the government in repressing free speech online.  Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the report and said foreign businesses are allowed to operate in the country “on the basis of compliance with Vietnamese laws.” Its Ministry of Information and Communications said last month that authorities remove posts that are illegal or are spreading propaganda. The platforms say they are bound by local laws and their own policies to remove or investigate content deemed illegal.  Online freedoms restricted   Vietnam has a poor media freedom record, ranking 175 out of 180 countries, where 1 is the most free, according to the Press Freedom Index produced by Reporters Without Borders. In an environment with limited access to independent news, freedom of expression flourished on Facebook and YouTube.   Facebook is the most popular platform in Vietnam with 65 million users, the world’s seventh largest number of users, and one of Facebook’s biggest markets in Asia, according to figures from market data firm Statista.  Blogger Doan Bao Chau said the presence of social media, especially Facebook, plays an important role in a country that does not have a free press.  
   
Truong Chau Huu Danh, a journalist who worked for state-run newspapers including Lao Dong and who has nearly 168,000 Facebook followers, agreed, saying, “Since the day Facebook was introduced to Vietnam, people’s awareness has increased significantly.”   FILE – Journalist Truong Chau Huu Danh met with the police on Jan. 15, 2019, in this photo from social media.But more recently, Amnesty International says, authorities have cracked down on online comment seen “as an existential threat to the regime.”  Having posts removed is common in Vietnam, said the blogger, Chau. “Many of my friends have had their posts removed from Facebook and even had their accounts shut down for writing about sensitive issues and criticism against the government.”  Danh said posts are often removed without a specific reason: “They just said it violated local law.”   The journalist, who helped found the Facebook news page Bao Sach (Clean Newspaper), had posts removed after he used the platform to write about alleged wrongdoing at an infrastructure funding program. Posts on a corruption case in Binh Duong Province, which attracted thousands of followers and interactions, were also removed after being deemed “restricted by local law,” Danh said.   “I sent my complaints but they didn’t respond or stayed silent,” said Danh.   The day after Danh spoke with VOA, police arrested him on charges of “abusing democratic freedoms” over his posts and ordered him detained for three months. If convicted, he faces up to seven years in prison.   Legal loopholes  Laws regulating internet-based companies appear to have increased compliance requests.   Vietnam’s law on cybersecurity, introduced on January 1, 2019, requires platforms to comply with local laws, including opening offices and storing user data within its borders. And a separate decree announced in February allows for operating licenses to be suspended for up to two years if companies violate the law by failing to block content flagged by authorities.    Vietnam’s FILE – Logos of mobile apps Facebook and Google displayed on a tablet, Oct. 1, 2019.Facebook said it “FILE – Nguyen Quang A, a prominent dissident, speaks to supporters as he leaves a consultative meeting with local residents in Hanoi, April 9, 2016.”I think the U.S. government, in particular the U.S. Congress, has the ability to set rules or regulations that would make companies change their business models to not hurt human rights and many other things,” Nguyen Quang A, a rights activist whose Facebook account has been previously shut down, told VOA.  Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for campaigns, Ming Yu Hah, shares a similar view, saying in a press release, “Companies — including Facebook and Google — have a responsibility to respect all human rights wherever they operate.”   Tao also said the U.S. government could lean on the platforms to do more to protect rights.   “Facebook is a U.S.-based business, they have to comply with U.S. laws and regulations, so I think if the U.S. government pushes hard and prohibits businesses from infringing on rights to freedom of speech of citizens in countries around the world, not only in the U.S., then it will work,” said Tao.  Amnesty has warned that other governments could adopt similar repressive strategies that require technology companies to tighten censorship. Such a move would be a “grave blow to freedom of expression,” the rights group said. 
 
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