Google removes content for Vietnam

HANOI — YouTube has removed approximately 90 percent of “toxic” video clips the Vietnamese Government complained about in 2017, Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan claimed yesterday.

During a conference on the ministry’s performance this year and its agenda for 2018, Tuan said that the Government so far requested Google to block and delete about 5,000 clips with bad content on YouTube, which is one of Google’s subsidiaries.

Of which, 4,500 clips were erased from YouTube.

The largest social network in the world and also the most popular in Vietnam, Facebook,  removed 159 accounts smearing the reputation of officials and leaders or those posting anti-Party and State content this year, Tuan said.

Under Vietnam’s request, Facebook also deleted 107 fake accounts and another 394 advertising and selling illegal goods and services.

“One of the highlights of the (communications) ministry this year is making Vietnam one of those countries pioneering in implementingmeasures to tighten management of enterprises providing trans-border services, particularly Google and Facebook,” the minister said.

“Vietnam is among those countries of which the rate of their (removal) demand stisfied by Google was the highest in the world,” he added.

In times of rapid technological development, Tuan said forces with evil intents would take advantage to deliver toxic information using foreign-based social services.

The mission of the communications ministry in 2018 is to improve mechanisms to monitor information on the Internet and manage foreign content service providers operating in Vietnam, while encouraging domestic firms to join the sector.

Communications growth

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, the sector gained revenue of more than VND2.13 quadrillion (US$94.9 billion) this year, a growth rate of 9.34 per cent over 2016.

The information technology industry yielded about VNĐ1.7 quadrillion, about 80 per cent of the total sector’s revenue. .Communications service providers were far behind in the second place, with only VNĐ352 trillion in the year despite growth over 2016.