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posted by janrinok on Friday January 17 2020, @10:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the cherish-our-freedom dept.

Al Jazeera:

Vietnam's Force 47 is run by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) to hack anti-government websites and spread pro-government messages online, and is believed to be at least 10,000-strong.

Anh Chi, the pen name of 46-year-old Nguyen Chi Tuyen, knows the ministry's tactics well. He has created videos criticising Force 47, and has expressed concern about the impact of a new cyber-law that came into effect at the beginning of the month.

The deadly January 9 incident in Dong Tam is a case in point.

According to the authorities, three police officers and 84-year-old village leader Le Dinh Kinh were killed after local residents clashed with police in the early hours of that day.

The dispute, over agricultural land next to a military airport, shocked the country. But afterwards, Vietnam's cyber-army, also known as Force 47, was deployed to counter the content on social media platforms deemed critical of the way the authorities handled the situation.

"Facebook is the main source of independent news now in Vietnam," said Trinh Huu Long, a co-founder of Legal Initiatives for Vietnam.

"The government has been working with Facebook to try to control content posted by dissidents and independent voices," he added.

Vietnam is said to be following China's lead in policing its citizens speech online. Is this going to become the global norm?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @03:26AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @03:26AM (#944858)

    Any yet those opposed to "political correctness" are the ones who end up putting people in concentration camps.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @03:59AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @03:59AM (#944866)

    Do you mean re-education camps where inmates earn a living wage? Concentration camp is so politically incorrect.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:04AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @09:04AM (#944925)

    That would be Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, and some lesser socialist big names, along with some great Turkish examples, and let us not forget Hitler, the National Socialist. Yes, we can agree that socialist agendas are to be feared.

    • (Score: 2) by dry on Sunday January 19 2020, @05:58PM

      by dry (223) on Sunday January 19 2020, @05:58PM (#945403) Journal

      Are they the ones who put the American Indians in re-education schools? Perhaps the ones who enslaved whoever they could?

  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @04:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @04:42PM (#944998)

    Yes folks like Hitler, Mao, and Stalin were all well known for their warm embrace of free expression among their populations...

    There's a good old USSR joke. Roosevelt says to Stalin, One great thing about America is that we have Freedom of Speech. Anybody could stand right in front of the White House, say "Roosevelt is a piece of shit" and nobody would care. Stalin responds, "Ah! Well we have freedom of speech in the USSR too. Anybody could stand right in front of the Kremlin, say "Roosevelt" is a piece of shit", and nobody would care at all!

    What do you think political correctness is about? It's control. It's used to try to push political agendas by controlling what is said. This is not just a leftist thing either. For instance in the 80s the right was hardcore into political correctness. And anything that went against the platform would be condemned as being 'against family values'. In modern times the left has gone for kind of unhinged corporate globalism. In this world Islamic migrants are a big target. Hence the decision to start labeling any critique whatsoever against Islam is Islamophobia because, you know, there's absolutely no genuine critiques against Islam whatsoever. Same thing with stuff like relabeling illegal immigrant to 'undocumented migrants'. It's an effort to change language itself to try to breed support for a political ideology.

    Needless to say, yes the folks who go on to do really nasty stuff tend to be huge fans of political correctness.