The habit of sharing unverified information is still common
As an office worker and regularly using social networks to update information, Ms. Bui Thi Thao (37 years old, Hanoi) admitted that she had previously shared many times articles that were of interest to many people without verifying the source of information.
Ms. Thao said: "At that time, I thought I was just pressing the share button, not the first person to post, so I would not be responsible if the information was wrong.
After learning about the new regulations, Ms. Thao told herself to change her way of using social networks because just one emotional sharing can cause false information to spread more widely, affecting others and she herself may also encounter legal troubles.
In fact, many people still see social networks as places where they can make arbitrary statements, share according to emotions, and comment in the crowd. An unverified status line, clipped video, offensive comment or seemingly harmless share can spread, causing information crises, damaging personal honor, organizational reputation and affecting social order.
Decree 174/2026/ND-CP of the Government was just issued in early July, stipulating penalties for administrative violations in the fields of post, telecommunications, radio frequency, electronic transactions and information technology. One of the notable points is stronger sanctions for violations of responsibility for using social network services.
According to new regulations, people who provide and share information that distorts history, denies revolutionary achievements, undermines the great national unity bloc, insults religion, discriminates against gender or race may be fined from 30 - 50 million VND. Similar penalties also apply to acts of disclosing state secrets, personal privacy secrets or other classified secrets that are not yet subject to criminal prosecution.
For acts of 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 organizations and individuals, the penalty level can be up to 30 - 35 million VND.
The Decree also supplements remedial measures such as forcing the removal of false information, confusing information, and illegal information; forcing the locking of accounts, community pages, community groups, or content channels due to violations.
Set higher standards of responsibility
Talking to Lao Dong Newspaper, Lawyer Pham Quoc Bao said: "Article 95 of Decree 174/2026/ND-CP clearly stipulates the act of "providing, sharing", meaning that the law does not distinguish between information creators and information spreaders. Pressing the button to share untrue content, in terms of composition, is already an objective act described in the article of law.
The argument "I only share it, the responsibility belongs to the poster" does not automatically exclude legal responsibility.
According to the lawyer, not every share is automatically penalized. Functional agencies will consider many factors such as whether the content is really false or not, the fault of the performer, the scope of spread, the level of impact, the consequences caused as well as whether the violator proactively removes, corrects or cooperates with functional agencies or not.
Another new point is that the Decree for the first time specifically regulates electronic evidence in administrative violation handling. Accordingly, posts, images, videos, comments, links and other electronic data can all be collected, verified and used as a basis for handling if they meet the requirements of integrity and legal value.
In addition to increasing penalties, the Decree also adds measures to force the locking of accounts, community pages, community groups or content channels for some serious violations.
Lawyer Pham Quoc Bao commented: "The increase in the penalty level, combined with the measure of locking accounts and electronic evidence mechanism, shows a message of shifting from reminder-based handling to substantive handling, hitting both the economic benefits and "digital assets" of violators, and at the same time setting higher standards of responsibility for all speeches in cyberspace.
According to lawyers, people need to form the habit of verifying information before sharing, prioritizing comparison with mainstream newspapers and information from competent authorities. For account holders, group administrators, fanpages or content channels, the responsibility is even greater when they have to proactively prevent and remove violating content at the request of functional agencies.
