Vietnam Lawmakers Approve Cyber Law Clamping Down on Tech Firms, Dissent

Vietnamese legislators approved a cybersecurity law on Tuesday that tightens control of the internet and global tech companies operating in the Communist-led country, raising fears of economic harm and a further crackdown on dissent. From a report: The cyber law, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2019, requires Facebook, Google and other global technology firms to store locally "important" personal data on users in Vietnam and open offices there. The vote in the National Assembly came a day after lawmakers delayed a decision on another controversial bill that had sparked violent protests in parts of the country on the weekend. Thousands of demonstrators in cities and provinces had denounced a plan to create new economic zones for foreign investment that has fueled anti-Chinese sentiment. Some protesters had also derided the cybersecurity bill, which experts and activists say could cause economic harm and stifle online dissent.

so?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is not each country allowed to have their own laws?

I just see complaints about freedom crying from a non western nation; one that best the pants off the US.

Last I checked the nation isn't actually communist. So this is sensationalistic. There are no actual communist nations around these days. And no, China is not communism; it's state capitalism with free trade zones that are used to prop up their economy in a capitalist world.

Re:

[manu0601]

This is not how the internet works, you can't force a site who sells a service to have s physical presence in every country on Earth just because some random government has decided it wants the ability to spy on their own people.

Yeah, it works by storing data in a foreign country where the government has the ability to spy on every people.

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[PPH]

Last I checked the nation isn't actually communist.

Standard rebuttal from a communist. Communism is great and beautiful. Until it represses the people. Then it's "not actually communist".

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[PPH]

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

- J.K. Galbraith

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[Dances With Sharks]

I spent a few weeks in Vietnam this Winter. Free enterprise was rampant. The economy seemed to be doing very well. On average, the people were happy. Probably happier than the average American. I didn't see the desperate poverty that is common in third-world countries. I didn't see beggars like you'd see in most third world countries and large American cities. However, they apparently still punish people for thought crimes (As they do in Thailand, for example, for saying bad things about the King, or in

Re:

[l0ungeb0y]

Name one instance where the people who rose up to install Communism were not handed instead even greater oppression and poverty. Communism is the worst sort of Populist scam. It preys upon an already impoverished people governed by a ruling elite who control the wealth by promising them equality and access to goods and service they never had before and once they rise up and bleed to bring about that change, the leaders of the Revolution instead replace the elite with an even smaller elite and take even grea

Re:

[sentiblue]

I was born and raised in Vietnam. I can assure you it's a communist country. And so for your information when you say there's no communist countries anymore that's very very wrong. The most power of them is China. Another is making lots of headline news last couple days is North Korea. The other 2 that I know of are Vietnam and Cuba. So let me sum this up for you: You don't know what you're talking about.

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[techno-vampire]

...one that best the pants off the US.

Ha, ha. It is to laugh. Neither the VC nor the NVA ever beat the US in the field. Even the Easter Offensive [wikipedia.org], a massive invasion by the NVA in 1972, resulted in huge losses of men and material for them and gained them nothing but tiny finger-holds south of the border. They only "won" the war because the anti-war movement here persuaded the politicians (falsely) that the war was unwinnable. I realize that this isn't what your history books say, but trust me, beca

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[SirAstral]

"Any expert here who actually did proper research and is aware of his own ideologies and social conditioning?"

If you cannot understand how intellectually bankrupt that question is then you probably cannot understand why people cannot fix things without applying their childish ideologies.

People are fearful creatures, they will never break away from it and sadly yes... they can be ruled quite easily through that fear. Nothing you listed is a fear based ideology. They are all just ideologies, the fear comes

oh

[cascadingstylesheet]

Wow, it's like they're a communist country or something!

operating in the Communist-led country

"Communist-led"? Is that like "Nazi-led" early 40's Germany?

Well, hate speech must be dealth with

[elrous0]

Please remember that hate speech isn't free speech. And hate speech is whatever the people in charge decide it is.

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[PPH]

Personally, I blame the UK for starting this [slashdot.org].

Hate speech and crime defined

[tepples]

There's no such thing as "hate speech."

Though I don't fully agree with Humpty Dumpty's claim in Carroll's Through the Looking Glass that a word means whatever the speaker wants, it's possible to give a useful definition for phrases like "hate speech". I'd define "hate speech" as speech that encourages hate crime, and in turn "hate crime" or "bias-motivated crime" [wikipedia.org] is crime that targets a particular protected class of people [wikipedia.org].

People should be free to express their opinions.

I agree, though people should also keep it civil. Though I am unfamiliar with speech regulation in Vietnam, U.S. courts have

This breaks the Internet

[Rick Schumann]

By my reckoning, more and more governments are deciding to do things regarding the Internet that will eventually break it into nation-sized 'walled gardens' like China has done. Add to that the possible actions by ISPs here in the U.S. now that Net Neutrality has been (only for the moment, hopefully) repealed, and the Internet as a whole will become quite broken. Really, it's not looking too good for the planet so far as Internet goes. Apparently we, as a species, are not evolved enough yet to get past all

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[Rick Schumann]

I used to say:

(Money == Power == Sex) == CONTROL

..and I'm far from being convinced that I'm wrong. The first two (Money and Power) really do seem to be a proxy for the third (Sex), and it all amounts to CONTROL. Humans want to CONTROL everything, and the more CONTROL they have, the more CONTROL they want; they want ALL of the CONTROL, and they don't care what the consequences are. The irony is even if they managed to CONTROL ALL THE THINGS, they wouldn't know what the fuck to do with it -- and subsequently they'd screw it all up. So it see

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[Rick Schumann]

I'd say it's more like (Money == Power == Control) -> Sex

Yeah, you're right, really. Damn I'm tired and fatigued today, I know better than that. :-/

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[sentiblue]

Oh they can regulate FB/GG all right.... these companies have offices, servers in Vietnam. As long as they have a presence in this country, they have the right to regulate. But yes I agree with you that if the companies don't agree with the policy, they can pack up and leave.

But that requires reading and studying history

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

US law enforcement and politicians should watch as these dictatorships use "harmless metadata" to round up groups of opposition members, to say nothing of mandated backdoors, to western police so they can add a notch in their belt, but to dictatorship enforcers, allowing the boot stepping on a human face, forever.

Major items in the new laws

[sentiblue]

I'd like to let you guys know what the major items are in these new laws... FYI

1. Facebook, Google and other global companies may exit Vietnam if they don't agree by Jan 1 2019
2. Law enforcement can request private information about anyone
3. Companies, when requested, must provide customer information to law enforcement
4. Consumers will be denied internet services if found or suspected of "questionable" internet activities
5. Online commerce will be prosecuted

What they should do is this...

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

Facebook, Google et al. should say: "This is the product we make. Our product is designed to have certain privacy safeguards in place, and we won't abide by your laws because it violates our company policy.* If this means our product is illegal to use in your country, then we're sorry, I guess people won't be using it in your country."

The downside: they don't do business in Vietnam. How big a fucking deal is that? For companies of this size, not a very big deal, I'm guessing.

The upside: They look like the good guys, and they get a huge amount of good publicity, for once.

The other upside: Vietnam's government has just forbidden the entire population of Vietnam from using Google and Facebook-- popular products that they want to use, and that almost everyone else in the world gets to use. They're going to be pissed off. Royally. Maybe it becomes a lot harder for you to hold onto your political power.

(*) Yes, yes, I know. Facebook and Google are both shitty companies that violate their own privacy policy all the time, both in ways that we know about and in ways that we don't. I have no illusions about that. Nonetheless, the blatant authoritarianism represented by this Vietnamese law is *even worse* than what we have to deal with in the US (IMO), and these companies can take a meaningful stand against it if they choose to do so.