The Government has just issued Decree No. 174/2026/ND-CP stipulating penalties for administrative violations in the fields of post, telecommunications, radio frequency, electronic transactions and information technology.
In which, noteworthy are the regulations on penalties for violations of responsibility for using social network services.
For acts violating regulations on responsibility for using social network services, the Decree stipulates:
1. A fine of between 20 million VND and 30 million VND shall be imposed for the act of taking advantage of social networks to commit one of the following acts:
a) Providing and sharing false information, untrue information, distortions, slander, and insults to the prestige of agencies, organizations, and the honor and dignity of individuals;
b) Providing and sharing information promoting social evils, prostitution, human trafficking; posting pornographic and depraved information; destroying ethnic customs and traditions, social ethics, and community health that are not serious enough for criminal prosecution;
c) Providing and sharing detailed information describing acts of slashing, killing, accidents, horrors, and creeps;
d) Providing and sharing journalistic, literary, artistic, and publication works without the consent of the intellectual property rights holder or not yet licensed for circulation or having a decision to ban circulation or confiscate them;
e) Advertising, propaganda, sharing information about prohibited goods and services;
e) Providing and sharing images of Vietnam maps but not showing or showing incorrect national sovereignty;
g) Providing and sharing links to information on the network with prohibited content;
h) Taking advantage of social networks to produce content in the form of reports, investigations, and press interviews;
i) Press agencies do not notify when establishing accounts, community pages, content channels, community groups on social networks at home and abroad as prescribed;
k) Account holders, content channel owners, community page owners, community group administrators on social networks who do not prevent or remove illegal information, information affecting the legitimate rights and interests of other organizations and individuals, information affecting children posted on their accounts, community pages, community groups or content channels when requested by competent authorities.
2. A fine of 30 million VND to 50 million VND shall be imposed for one of the following acts:
a) Providing and sharing information that distorts history, denies revolutionary achievements, undermines the great national unity bloc, insults religion, gender discrimination, and racial discrimination that is not serious enough for criminal prosecution;
b) Disclosure of information belonging to the list of state secrets, personal privacy secrets and other secrets that are not serious enough for criminal prosecution;
c) Providing and sharing false information causing panic among the people, causing damage to socio-economic activities, causing difficulties for the operation of state agencies or public officials, infringing upon the legitimate rights and interests of other agencies, organizations, and individuals that have not reached the level of criminal prosecution.
This Decree takes effect from July 1, 2026.
