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Vietnam ARTICLE 19 activists in prison in October 2023, commonly due to charges under Articles 117 and 331 of the Penal Code. 115 These articles can result in multi-year prison sentences for sharing distorted information about the government or abusing freedom of speech or other freedoms to infringe on the interests of the state.116 Such provisions represent a serious breach of human rights standards and can easily be used to silence dissent. In practice, they have often been used against journalists, activists, and bloggers for their online posts.117 Legal obligations on tech companies Vietnam relies on private companies to aid its online censorship efforts. It has enacted a number of laws which place obligations on tech companies to moderate or remove content and share data with authorities. Important new draft laws and regulations are currently under development: • Decree 72/2013 (and a draft replacement decree): This wide-ranging decree is one of the most important Vietnamese legal instruments for regulating the internet. It imposes intermediary liability and other obligations on certain classes of service providers. For example, ‘aggregated information websites’ and companies providing social networks must establish at least one server in Vietnam to enable the provision of data to authorities, must avoid disseminating prohibited content, and must remove prohibited content at the request of authorities.118 Subsequent regulations have elaborated further on the requirements in Decree No. 72. However, at the time of writing, a draft decree to replace Decree No. 72 is under discussion. Among other things, this would require social media users to authenticate their accounts with personal information and require platforms to screen content proactively and comply with 24-hour takedown notices.119 • Law on Cybersecurity, 2019 (LCS): The LCS imposes a number of obligations on service providers and ‘system administrators’, which must remove specified prohibited content at the request of a ‘cyber task force’ created by the LCS.120 System administrators are also required to take action to detect and block the sharing of state secrets and other confidential information, such as business and private secrets.121 Websites and portals ____________________________________________ 115 The 88 Project, Database of Persecuted Activists in Vietnam. Penal Code, No. 100/2015/QH13, 27 November 2015, English translation. 117 OHCHR, Viet Nam: Arrests Send Chilling Message before Key Party Meeting – UN Experts, 14 January 2021. 118 Articles 24–25. The requirements are slightly different for each category. Aggregated information websites appear to have a stronger obligation to screen for and remove prohibited content, while social networks must avoid providing it. 119 Caster, Vietnam: Confronting Digital Dictatorship; Global Network Initiative, GNI Submission to the Government of Vietnam on Potential New Decree 72 on the Management, Provision and Use of Internet Services and Online Information, 2023. 120 Law on Cybersecurity, No. 24/2018/QH14, 12 June 2018, English translation, Articles 16(6) and 26(2). 121 Law on Cybersecurity, Article 17(2). 116 32

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Engaging tech for internet freedom in authoritarian countries

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Information Operation
Internet Restrictions

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Article 19

Date Published: Oct 5, 2024

Abstract: In this report, ARTICLE 19 reviews the human rights context and responsibilities of tech companies operating in 3 authoritarian countries in Asia, namely China, Myanmar, and Vietnam. It focuses on the rights to freedom of expression and privacy, and the manner in which authoritarian states directly or indirectly expect companies to assist them in censoring content, promoting propaganda, accessing user data, and engaging in surveillance. While these are undoubtedly highly challenging contexts, companies have not sufficiently prioritised protecting human rights in their policies and actions. States are the primary duty bearers under international human rights law, but companies also have human rights responsibilities, as outlined in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Even if domestic law or circumstances make it impossible for companies to fully meet their human rights responsibilities, they should take action so as to respect human rights standards to the greatest extent possible. Tech companies should not merely reference local law as an excuse for collaborating in rights violations. They should take steps such as those detailed in this report, like adopting appropriate policies, asking governments to justify content removal requests clearly and specifically, and reporting transparently on their compliance with government demands. For each country, we survey the country context and provide an overview of legal obligations which companies operate under that are problematic from the perspective of international human rights law and that may, as a result, put pressure on companies to become complicit in violations of the rights to freedom of expression and privacy. We then explore how Western tech companies operating in these countries, many of which have explicitly stated their commitment to respecting freedom of expression and privacy, have responded to these legal obligations and to other government expectations that they will cooperate in violations of these rights.

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Engaging tech for internet freedom in authoritarian countries

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