Facebook Agrees to Censor Anti-State Content in Vietnam Occurred on 21 Apr 2020

Two Facebook sources told Reuters that the company agreed to start censoring anti-state content in Vietnam after facing pressure from the government. The pressure came when state-owned telecommunications companies took Facebook’s regional servers offline for about seven weeks. During that period, the platform was barely usuable, if at all.

Facebook gave the following statement to Reuters:

We believe freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, and work hard to protect and defend this important civil liberty around the world …

However, we have taken this action to ensure our services remain available and usable for millions of people in Vietnam, who rely on them every day.