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Vietnam ARTICLE 19 nearly USD 1 billion of annual revenue.146 Meta therefore has significant business incentives to comply with government demands. However, the Vietnamese Government has also specifically targeted Facebook. Vietnam slowed Facebook services for around 7 weeks in 2020 by taking its servers offline, although state media claimed the problem was undersea cable maintenance. The servers were restored only after Facebook committed to censoring more anti-state content – according to Reuters, citing internal company sources.147 Following this incident, Facebook’s approach of relative ‘caution’ in complying with censorship demands shifted to one of ‘near-guaranteed compliance’, according to claims by the Vietnamese Government.148 Facebook admits that it agreed to significantly increase censorship of ‘anti-state’ posts following this event, saying ‘we have taken this action to ensure our services remain available and usable for millions of people in Vietnam’.149 Amnesty International said that this was possibly the first time that Facebook had officially acknowledged a policy to increase compliance with censorship of political expression at the request of the government, even though such speech is protected under international human rights law. 150 In a letter to Amnesty, Facebook said that it was committed to the UNGPs and referenced Principle 23’s language regarding situations where legal obligations and international human rights principles conflict. It also said that its teams only restrict content when it is alleged to be illegal and that their review considers the impact of the decision on the accessibility of speech on its platform.151 Facebook therefore sometimes cites the need to remain in the Vietnamese market and at other times the UNGPs. Overall, however, it has provided limited information on the extent to which it complies with Vietnamese laws or applies human rights considerations in its content moderation. It has also not clearly demonstrated that it is respecting human rights to the ‘greatest extent possible’ given the Vietnamese circumstances. In terms of blocking users who are misusing the self-reporting feature, in 2021 a Facebook source said that it had removed a private Facebook group called ‘E47’ whose members were coordinating to report activists.152 However, it does not appear to have taken strong action against the broader problem of coordinated inauthentic behaviour and mass reporting ____________________________________________ 146 S. Strangio, Could Vietnam Really Shut Down Facebook? The Diplomat, 23 November 2020. J. Pearson, Exclusive: Facebook Agreed to Censor Posts after Vietnam Slowed Traffic – Sources, Reuters, 21 April 2020. 148 D. Luong, Meta Cozies Up to Vietnam, Censorship Demands and All, Coda, 28 September 2023. 149 Pearson, Facebook Agreed to Censor Posts. 150 Amnesty International, Let Us Breathe!, p. 30. 151 Amnesty International, Let Us Breathe!, p. 30. 152 J. Pearson, Facebook Says It Removes Accounts Which Targeted Vietnamese Activists, Reuters, 1 December 2021. 147 37

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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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