Although I am sad to see the result of negotiation comes to a disgusting compromise endangering political dissent, I am more saddened to see fellow privacy advocates taking a cynical stance against Facebook. I have my own share of bashing Facebook, but in this negotiation, it's Facebook vs the Vietnam government. Bashing Facebook does not hurt the standing of the Vietnam government one bit. However much I dislike Facebook, it is undoubtedly on the pro-openness side of this negotiation.
Early last year, Vietnam accused Facebook of violating a new cybersecurity law by allowing users to post anti-government comments on the platform.
In the months that followed, Amnesty International said at least 16 people were arrested, detained or convicted for such posts. In November, state media reported that five more had been jailed.
What can you do as a tech company against a government which arrests people for speech?
Facebook had refused to provide information on “fraudulent accounts” to Vietnamese security agencies, the agency said in Wednesday’s report.
Facebook had held out for a year, not complying with request from a government. Even though we view Facebook's eventual compliance as complicit, just how hard is refusing to comply?
The information ministry [...] cited a market research company as saying $235 million was spent on advertising on Facebook in Vietnam in 2018, but that Facebook was ignoring its tax obligations there.
They got threats of tax investigation. Did they get threats of arrest of employees? I want to praise Facebook for holding out a year.
In November, Vietnam said it wanted half of social media users on domestic social networks by 2020 and plans to prevent “toxic information” on Facebook and Google.
As much as we want people off Facebook, the government wants that too, but obviously for totally different goals, and different destination services. Do we really want to align with the government like this?
There are abundant reasons to take Facebook to task. But this is not one of them.
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Although I am sad to see the result of negotiation comes to a disgusting compromise endangering political dissent, I am more saddened to see fellow privacy advocates taking a cynical stance against Facebook. I have my own share of bashing Facebook, but in this negotiation, it's Facebook vs the Vietnam government. Bashing Facebook does not hurt the standing of the Vietnam government one bit. However much I dislike Facebook, it is undoubtedly on the pro-openness side of this negotiation.
What can you do as a tech company against a government which arrests people for speech?
"Early last year" pertains to this report also from Reuters: Vietnam says Facebook violated controversial cybersecurity law
Facebook had held out for a year, not complying with request from a government. Even though we view Facebook's eventual compliance as complicit, just how hard is refusing to comply?
They got threats of tax investigation. Did they get threats of arrest of employees? I want to praise Facebook for holding out a year.
As much as we want people off Facebook, the government wants that too, but obviously for totally different goals, and different destination services. Do we really want to align with the government like this?
There are abundant reasons to take Facebook to task. But this is not one of them.