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Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

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Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#61

Post by ashleyn »

santoriv wrote: post #17

It's an interesting progression - 5 years ago the Vietnamese government was trying to block Facebook (it was pretty easy to get around). Then they gave up on that and allowed everyone on Facebook, and now they are more concerned with dissent so I guess they are going to patrol social media. It's interesting that they have not decided to return to their previous policy of blocking Facebook. They have some pretty stran…

Somewhere along the line, they realised that deploying a bunch of KGB-style bots on Facebook was a hell of a lot more effective at controlling people than simply banning it. When dissent results in a crushing flood of mean-spirited trolls, who needs censorship?

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#62

Post by kingkawn »

santoriv wrote: post #17

It's an interesting progression - 5 years ago the Vietnamese government was trying to block Facebook (it was pretty easy to get around). Then they gave up on that and allowed everyone on Facebook, and now they are more concerned with dissent so I guess they are going to patrol social media. It's interesting that they have not decided to return to their previous policy of blocking Facebook. They have some pretty stran…

My brother (we are from the US) has lived in vietnam for a long time. Taking Vietnamese language classes is easy and common-place for foreigners.

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#63

Post by ihsw2 »

ashleyn wrote: post #61
santoriv wrote: post #17

It's an interesting progression - 5 years ago the Vietnamese government was trying to block Facebook (it was pretty easy to get around). Then they gave up on that and allowed everyone on Facebook, and now they are more concerned with dissent so I guess they are going to patrol social media. It's interesting that they have not decided to return to their previous policy of blocking Facebook. They have some pretty stran…

Somewhere along the line, they realised that deploying a bunch of KGB-style bots on Facebook was a hell of a lot more effective at controlling people than simply banning it. When dissent results in a crushing flood of mean-spirited trolls, who needs censorship?

You cannot remove ideas from the mind but you can flood it with so much misinformation that the ideas are basically destroyed.

Effectively, people will "block Facebook" from themselves through self-censorship or completely writing off Facebook as a "poisoned well."

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#64

Post by coldtea »

secret_island wrote: post #3

I'm sure they are getting their playbook from their Chinese friends. Even Japan is getting more heavy handed than they were, and in Asia, they are the most liberal of all governments in comparison. Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, all heavy handed as regards the Internet. Russia, China, most of the former Balkan states, Turkey... Brazil, even.

With the pervasive surveillance, paid troll campaigns from all parties, operations to influence media from agencies, millions of fake anti-net-neutrality messages, etc, the US is not some paragon of internet freedom either...

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#66

Post by unknown_apostle »

So is this really fundamentally different from the plans in EU and Germany?

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/call-appl...

It's a dangerous illusion of modernity that you can just pick up a "high quality" newspaper or watch the news and understand what is happening in the world. Or even in your own region.

One possible advantage of the total chaos of internet news is that the noise becomes so strong that we can't even receive the signal of traditional news sources with their "expert opinion" anymore.

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#67

Post by seanmcdirmid »

adventured wrote: post #49
santoriv wrote: post #17

It's an interesting progression - 5 years ago the Vietnamese government was trying to block Facebook (it was pretty easy to get around). Then they gave up on that and allowed everyone on Facebook, and now they are more concerned with dissent so I guess they are going to patrol social media. It's interesting that they have not decided to return to their previous policy of blocking Facebook. They have some pretty stran…

The US has gotten a lot closer to Vietnam in terms of trade relations over the last 5 to 10 years. The US now regards Vietnam as a strategic interest to be aggressively developed. The US will import about $50 billion worth of goods from Vietnam in 2017. That's up from $10 billion a decade ago. That's equal to 25% of Vietnam's entire GDP. It's also almost entirely one way, it's about as pure of a trade deficit as they…

Vietnam is a fairly large country (90 million people) that has a lot of potential. They are also next in line for decelopkent, and China antagonizes them enough to put them in the USA’s sphere of influence. Besides, China isn’t interesting in importing the goods Vietnam manufactures.

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#68

Post by bergoid »

orf wrote: post #56
hailk wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unclear about lawful differentiation between both sentences that makes one hate speech and other not. Or is it the manner of delivery?

It's all about the manner of delivery: "Any communication which is threatening or abusive, and is intended to harass, alarm, or distress someone is forbidden"[1] Notice the and condition, it has to be threatening and intended to harass for example. Just causing someone distress without the intend to harass or threaten is not illegal, so someone feeling upset about what you said is perfectly fine. But if you said it t…

> "Any communication which is threatening or abusive, and is intended to harass, alarm, or distress someone is forbidden"

Prohibitions like this one are overly broad and smother a lot of legitimate discussion. Exceptions to free speech used to be limited to things like:

* Don't yell "fire" in a crowded theater.

* Don't call for violence.

If we broaden the scope to any speech someone, somewhere might take offense to, then we can no longer have much diversity of thought in public debates.

If these kind of "hate speech" laws existed in England in the 19th century, Charles Darwin would possibly never have published the book "Descent of Man", because saying "You and I both descend from animals" was a very demeaning thing to say to most people at the time, and therefore could have landed him in court. The very idea of biological evolution is still offensive to a lot of people today, BTW.

A stark warning that this concern is not a sterile theoretical exercise came in August this year, when James Damore was fired from Google: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...

So a company that champions and celebrates science to the outside world (like in their many doodles about scientists) and that has control over much of today's human communication, believes at the same time that it is a thoughtcrime to cite the scientific consensus about something as basic as biological differences between men and women.

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#69

Post by addicted »

unknown_apostle wrote: post #66

So is this really fundamentally different from the plans in EU and Germany? https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/call-appl... It's a dangerous illusion of modernity that you can just pick up a "high quality" newspaper or watch the news and understand what is happening in the world. Or even in your own region. One possible advantage of the total chaos of internet news is that the noise becomes so strong…

It depends on the kind of oversight policies the EU group develops.

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#70

Post by orf »

bergoid wrote: post #68
orf wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all about the manner of delivery: "Any communication which is threatening or abusive, and is intended to harass, alarm, or distress someone is forbidden"[1] Notice the and condition, it has to be threatening and intended to harass for example. Just causing someone distress without the intend to harass or threaten is not illegal, so someone feeling upset about what you said is perfectly fine. But if you said it t…

> "Any communication which is threatening or abusive, and is intended to harass, alarm, or distress someone is forbidden" Prohibitions like this one are overly broad and smother a lot of legitimate discussion. Exceptions to free speech used to be limited to things like: * Don't yell "fire" in a crowded theater. * Don't call for violence. If we broaden the scope to any speech someone, somewhere might take offense to,…

> If these kind of "hate speech" laws existed in England in the 19th century

These laws not only existed, they where far more stringent, prosecution far easier and the punishment far more severe. Try going back then and discussing the king/queen in a negative way.

And yet, his book was still published.

And in any case, he didn't say it to be threatening or abusive, so that's moot.

> A stark warning that this concern is not a sterile theoretical exercise

The HR policies of an American company (a country where in a lot of states you can be fired for any/no reason at all) is neither here nor there in a discussion about the UK's definition of hate crime, where that definition needs to be proven in a court of law to a jury of your peers at a trial.

Not every country adheres to such a fanatical stance on free speech as the USA, and yet seem to be doing just fine. Especially the UK, where there are restrictions on free speech. Sensible restrictions supported by the sensible population, who are not oddly terrified of their government.

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