According to Reuters, on 23 May, the State Ministry of Science and Technology of Viet Nam has imposed sanctions against the non-cooperative attitude of the social software Telegram on the grounds of cybersecurity, and domestic telecommunications service providers have been requested to block the use of Telegram for instant communications.
According to a government document signed by the Deputy Director of Telecommunications of the Ministry of Science and Technology of Viet Nam on 21 May, telecommunications service providers in Viet Nam have been requested to take technical measures to shield Telegram and to submit a ban enforcement report to the Ministry of Science and Technology by 2 June. The operation was launched at the request of the Vietnamese cyber security services.
According to police reports, 68 per cent of the 9,600 Telegram channels and communities in Viet Nam are involved in illegal activities, including fraud, drug trafficking and “social fear cases”. The Vietnamese police and official media have repeatedly warned the population that the Telegram group is at risk of crime, fraud and data disclosure. At present, Telegram has regular access to Viet Nam.
In Viet Nam, media control has always been very strict, and on several occasions platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok have been asked to cooperate with the authorities in removing “harmful content”, including offensive speech, false information and anti-government content. The paper alleges that Telegram failed to comply with its legal obligation to monitor, remove and block illegal information, citing police intelligence that “many groups of tens of thousands were created by terrorists to disseminate anti-government documents”.
Telegram, a common news application for Vietnamese users, competes with whatsApp, Twitter, etc., and its privacy function attracts a large number of users, but also makes it a potential platform for criminal activity. Telegram indicated that its service provisions prohibited criminal activities such as fraud and money-laundering and would remove the relevant information when discovered, but refused to provide the Government with user data.
Telegram has nearly a billion users around the globe, and disputes over security and data disclosure have been raging. Its founder Pavel Durov was briefly detained in France last year.
