Sec. 5. Actions to combat online censorship and surveillance in Vietnam
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Congress finds the following: Vietnam continues to have one of the world’s most restrictive internet environments, with pervasive filtering of content and the frequent arrests of bloggers and others whose only offense is to advocate online for positions different than those held by the government. Since 2013, the Government of Vietnam has issued laws and decrees, including a cybersecurity law, that increased its ability to surveil its citizens without judicial oversight or recourse.
The cybersecurity law has been used to charge Vietnamese citizens with vague crimes of negating revolutionary achievements and distributing misleading information among the people . Vietnam’s Penal Code and Decree 15 have also been used to render many legitimate online activities illegal, leading to the arrest and detentions of political prisoners. Vietnam has recently enacted Decree 147, a stringent internet regulation that took effect on December 25, 2024. Decree 147 significantly tightens governmental control over the internet in Vietnam, posing substantial threats to human rights and freedom of speech by enforcing user identification, facilitating state surveillance, and enabling rapid censorship of online content.
The Government of Vietnam uses the cybersecurity law to require United States companies to store information in Vietnam, censor social media posts on demand, and to turn over sensitive personal information about users. Companies such as Facebook and Google comply with these requests, including through the censorship of social media content of United States citizens and permanent resident aliens. United States companies Facebook and YouTube have been instrumental in this crackdown, complying with Vietnam’s request to censor and geoblock content determined to violate local Vietnamese law, which often contradicts international law and Vietnam’s treaty obligations.
In the first half of 2020, Facebook increased its content restrictions in Vietnam by 983 percent, a dramatic increase from the second half of 2019. Facebook complied with 90 percent of Vietnam’s censorship requests and YouTube with 95 percent of such requests, a fact the Government of Vietnam noted with satisfaction. As of December 31, 2023, the local legal provisions that directly enabled Facebook and YouTube’s censorship, Articles 117 and 331 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, were used to imprison most of the 258 prisoners of conscience.
A free and open internet and the free flow of news and information— are fundamental components of United States foreign policy because they foster economic growth, protect individual liberties, and advance national security; are critical to the advancement of both United States economic interests and internationally recognized human rights globally; and are severely hindered by Vietnam’s cybersecurity law which would allow the Government of Vietnam to access private data, spy on users, require United States businesses to turn over personally identifiable information or block content of users, including outside of Vietnam, and further restrict already limited online speech.
It is the policy of the United States to— pursue an open and free internet in Vietnam as an issue promoting United States economic interests and advancing internationally-recognized human rights; engage all appropriate United States Government agencies to promote the free flow of news and information in Vietnam; use all appropriate United States diplomatic instruments to pressure the Government of Vietnam to halt requests to force social media companies to disclose identity, or block accounts and content of individuals whose content the Government disapproves; use all available diplomatic instruments available to pursue trade policies with Vietnam that expand internet freedom and the information economy in Vietnam by— ensuring the free flow of information across the global network; promoting stronger international transparency rules; and ensuring fair and equal treatment of online services regardless of country of origin; and require companies with contracts with the United States Government that accede to requests of the Government of Vietnam to engage in censorship or to reveal sensitive personal information to report such requests to the Department of State at the time such requests occur and to report the nature of such requests and the companies’ responses publicly.
The Secretary of State is authorized to take such actions as may be necessary to— prioritize the immediate distribution of censorship circumvention tools for computers and smartphones in Vietnam; and prioritize projects to ensure the safety and privacy of bloggers and journalists and human rights defenders in Vietnam. The Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative, should brief the appropriate congressional committees on an action plan outlining efforts to— promote internet freedom and the free flow of news and information in Vietnam; and promote efforts to assist United States internet companies to fulfill their stated missions to promote openness, transparency, and connectivity by opposing requests by the Government of Vietnam to remove political speech or content of journalists, especially when content is removed from the accounts of users in the United States.