The above information was said by Mr. Lam Dinh Thang - Director of the Department of Information and Communications (TTTT) of Ho Chi Minh City when answering questions at the 17th session of Ho Chi Minh City People's Council, term X, on the morning of July 16.
Responding to questions from Ho Chi Minh City People's Council delegates about the issue of fake news and bad news spreading online, Mr. Lam Dinh Thang said that current online information comes from two sources.
The first are domestic organizations and individuals with clear origins and licenses. The remaining sources are websites of unknown origin and cross-border social networks.
For managed units, if there are any violations, the authorities will promptly correct and handle them. However, handling fake news on cross-border social networks such as YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok is still difficult.
The Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Information and Communications said that the main cause of fake news and bad news online is that businesses providing cross-border services do not have legal representatives in Vietnam. Although people read news every day in Vietnamese, their servers are not located in our country.
"When Vietnamese agencies request to remove fake, bad, and toxic news, most of these businesses try to avoid it because of their internal regulations. Therefore, there is still a lot of fake and misleading news on the Internet. network" – Mr. Lam Dinh Thang said.
Besides, the coordination between ministries, branches, units and localities in identifying fake news is still time-consuming and not strict.
Recently, the Department of Information and Communications of Ho Chi Minh City has implemented many solutions to strictly handle online violations, not just stopping at handling violations in the city. Recently, the Department coordinated with the Department of Information and Communications of Bac Giang province to handle cases of incorrect statements about the city.
The Department of Information and Communications of Ho Chi Minh City also coordinates with the City Police to carry out judicial examination of cases showing signs of criminal violations, transferring files to the police agency for handling. In 2023, the department transferred 24 files and from the beginning of 2024 until now, 18 files.
At the same time, Ho Chi Minh City has a system to listen to social networks, synthesize public opinion information, and detect violations in cyberspace. Ho Chi Minh City is researching the establishment of a fake news handling unit throughout the area, expected to be located at the City Press Center.
In the coming time, Mr. Lam Dinh Thang said, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Information and Communications will continue to propose to the Ministry of Information and Communications on solutions to handle cross-border social networks. From the beginning of the year until now, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Information and Communications has transferred 30 violating accounts in cyberspace for handling.
“It is necessary to change the way of management so that all social network accounts must be identified and only identified accounts can comment. Cross-border social networks must comply with the authorities' requests within 24 hours" - Mr. Lam Dinh Thang said.
The Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Information and Communications also said that it is necessary to strengthen the responsibility of authorities in branches and localities in speaking and refuting fake and misleading news.
