{"id":295579,"date":"2021-07-09T19:43:42","date_gmt":"2021-07-09T16:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/how-vietnams-influencer-army-wages-information-warfare-on-facebook\/"},"modified":"2021-07-09T19:43:42","modified_gmt":"2021-07-09T16:43:42","slug":"how-vietnams-influencer-army-wages-information-warfare-on-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-vietnams-influencer-army-wages-information-warfare-on-facebook\/","title":{"rendered":"#How Vietnam’s ‘influencer’ army wages information warfare on Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#How Vietnam’s ‘influencer’ army wages information warfare on Facebook<\/a><\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

HANOI, July 9 \u2013 In Vietnam, where the state is fighting a fierce online battle against political dissent, social media \u201cinfluencers\u201d are more likely to be soldiers than celebrities.<\/p>\n

Force 47, as the Vietnamese\u00a0army\u2019s online\u00a0information\u00a0warfare\u00a0unit is known, consists of thousands of soldiers who, in addition to their normal duties, are tasked with setting up, moderating and posting on pro-state\u00a0Facebook\u00a0groups, to correct \u201cwrong views\u201d online.<\/p>\n

According to a Reuters review of provincial-level state media reports and broadcasts by the\u00a0army\u2019s official television station, Force 47 has since its inception in 2016 set up hundreds of\u00a0Facebook\u00a0groups and pages and published thousands of pro-government articles and posts.<\/p>\n

Social media researchers say the group may be the largest and most sophisticated influence network in Southeast Asia. And it is now playing a prominent role in the country\u2019s intensifying conflict with\u00a0Facebook.<\/p>\n

After being app<\/a>roached by Reuters this week, a\u00a0Facebook\u00a0source said the company had removed a group called \u201cE47,\u201d which had mobilized both military and non-military members to report posts they did not like to\u00a0Facebook\u00a0in an effort to have them taken down. The source said the group was connected to a list of Force 47 groups identified by Reuters.<\/p>\n

\"A
A Facebook page of a group called \u2018Keeping company with Force 47\u2019, which was identified by Vietnamese state media as being controlled by \u2018Force 47\u2019 cyber troops, is displayed on screen in this photo taken July 6.<\/figcaption>
Reuters<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A\u00a0Facebook\u00a0spokesperson confirmed that some groups and accounts were taken down on Thursday for \u201ccoordinating attempts to mass report content.\u201d A company source said the action was one of\u00a0Facebook\u2019s largest takedowns initiated under its mass reporting policy.<\/p>\n

But many of the Force 47 accounts and groups identified by Reuters remain active. Since they are operated by users under their real names, they do not violate\u00a0Facebook\u00a0policies, the company source said.<\/p>\n

Vietnam\u2019s\u00a0foreign ministry, which handles enquiries to the government from foreign media, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the takedown.<\/p>\n

Unlike in neighboring China,\u00a0Facebook\u00a0is not blocked in Vietnam, where it has 60 million to 70 million users. It is\u00a0Vietnam\u2019s\u00a0main platform for e-commerce and generates around $1 billion in annual revenue for the company.<\/p>\n

It has also become the main platform for political dissent, launching\u00a0Facebook\u00a0and the government into a constant tussle over the removal of content deemed to be \u201canti-state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vietnam has undergone sweeping economic reforms and social change in recent decades, but the ruling Communist Party retains a tight grip over media and tolerates little dissent.<\/p>\n

Last year, Vietnam slowed traffic on\u00a0Facebook\u2019s local servers to a crawl until it agreed to significantly increase the censorship of political content in Vietnam. Months later, authorities threatened to shut down\u00a0Facebook\u00a0in Vietnam entirely if it did not locally restrict access to more content.<\/p>\n

In a statement to Reuters, a\u00a0Facebook\u00a0spokesperson said the company\u2019s goal was to keep its services in Vietnam online \u201cfor as many people as possible to express themselves, connect with friends and run their business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been open and transparent about our decisions in response to the rapid rise in attempts to block our services in Vietnam,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

Vietnam does not have the wherewithal to sustain a Chinese-style \u201cGreat Firewall\u201d and develop local social media alternatives, said Dien Luong, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has paved the way for\u00a0Facebook\u00a0to become the platform of choice for Force 47 to safeguard the party line, shape public opinion and spread state propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Skilled and malicious\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"A
A Facebook page of a group called \u2018Believe in the Party\u2019 which was identified by Vietnamese state media as being controlled by \u2018Force 47\u2019 cyber troops, is displayed on screen in this photo taken July 6, 2021.<\/figcaption>
Reuters<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is no official definition of what constitutes a \u201cwrong view\u201d in Vietnam. But activists, journalists, bloggers and \u2013 increasingly \u2013\u00a0Facebook\u00a0users, have all received hefty jail terms in recent years for spreading \u201canti-state propaganda,\u201d or opinions which counter those promoted by the Party.<\/p>\n

Last week, Le Van Dung, a prominent activist who regularly broadcasts live to thousands of followers on\u00a0Facebook, was arrested after more than a month on the run, according to a police statement.<\/p>\n

Dung, who goes by \u201cLe Dung Vova\u201d was detained on charges of \u201cmaking, storing, spreading\u00a0information, materials and items for the purpose of opposing the state,\u201d under Article 117 of\u00a0Vietnam\u2019s\u00a0Penal Code.<\/p>\n

He faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.<\/p>\n

Force 47 takes its name from Directive 47, a policy document issued by the\u00a0army\u2019s General<\/a> Political Department on Jan. 8, 2016. Analysts say it was created as an alternative to hiring civilian \u201copinion shapers\u201d \u2013 or \u201cdu luan vien\u201d \u2013 that had operated on a smaller, less successful scale.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the \u2018du luan vien\u2019 were not as well trained in Party ideology or as conservative as military officials, their performance was not as good as expected,\u201d said Nguyen The Phuong, a researcher at the Saigon Center for International Studies. \u201cForce 47 is also less costly. Military officials consider it part of their job and don\u2019t ask for an allowance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The size of Force 47 is not clear, but in 2017, the general in charge of the unit at the time, Nguyen Trong Nghia, said it had 10,000 \u201cred and competent\u201d members. The true number could be much higher: the Reuters review of known Force 47\u00a0Facebook\u00a0groups showed tens of thousands of users.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Facebook\u00a0source said the E47 group it had taken action against was made up of an active membership of military and non-military members.<\/p>\n

Nghia now heads the main propaganda arm of the Party.\u00a0Vietnam\u2019s\u00a0information\u00a0ministry recently promulgated a social media code of conduct that closely resembles Force 47 directives, urging people to post about \u201cgood deeds\u201d and banning anything that affects \u201cthe interests of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Struggle on the internet\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"A
A state media article from March 17, 2021 with a picture of a meeting marking five years since the creation of Vietnam\u2019s \u2018Force 47\u2019 cyber army is displayed on screen in this picture taken July 8, 2021. <\/figcaption>
TRUYENHINHNGHEAN.VN via Reuters<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In March, conferences were held at military bases across Vietnam to mark five years since the creation of Force 47.<\/p>\n

State media reports about the meetings named at least 15\u00a0Facebook\u00a0pages and groups it said were controlled by Force 47 which collectively had over 300,000 followers, according to a Reuters analysis of those groups.<\/p>\n

Rather than being a single\u00a0army\u00a0unit, Force 47 soldiers appear to carry out their activities alongside their usual duties and create locally targeted content, the reports revealed.<\/p>\n

In addition to\u00a0Facebook, Force 47 creates anonymous Gmail and Yahoo email addresses and accounts on Google\u2019s YouTube and Twitter, according to the reports.<\/p>\n

YouTube said it had terminated nine channels on Friday for violating its policies on spam, including a channel identified by Reuters as a suspected Force 47 operation.<\/p>\n

Twitter said it had not seen any activity by Force 47.<\/p>\n

Many of the\u00a0Facebook\u00a0groups reviewed by Reuters played on patriotic sentiments with names such as \u201cI love the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,\u201d \u201cVietnam in my Heart,\u201d \u201cVoice of the Fatherland\u201d and \u201cBelieve in the Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some groups, such as \u201cKeeping company with Force 47\u201d and \u201cRoses of Force 47\u201d were obvious in their affiliation, while others \u2013 such as \u201cPink Lotus\u201d and a few groups that used the names of local towns in their titles \u2013 were more subtle.<\/p>\n

The posts varied in content, with many extolling\u00a0Vietnam\u2019s\u00a0army, founding leader Ho Chi Minh, or Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong. Others showed screenshots of \u201cwrong\u00a0information\u201d posted by other\u00a0Facebook\u00a0users, marked with a large red \u201cX.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese developments unfolding in Vietnam are scary and have expanded with impunity,\u201d said Dhevy Sivaprakasam, Asia-Pacific policy counsel at internet rights group Access Now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are witnessing the creation of a reality where people are not safe to speak freely online and where there\u2019s no concept of individual privacy.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#How Vietnam’s ‘influencer’ army wages information warfare on Facebook” HANOI, July 9 \u2013 In Vietnam, where the state is fighting a fierce online battle against political dissent, social media \u201cinfluencers\u201d are more likely to be soldiers than celebrities. Force 47, as the Vietnamese\u00a0army\u2019s online\u00a0information\u00a0warfare\u00a0unit is known, consists of thousands of soldiers who, in addition to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":295580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/07\/vietnams-influencer-army-01.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[111504,4974,74480,4976,71813],"class_list":["post-295579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-7-9-21","tag-facebook","tag-influencers","tag-social-media","tag-vietnam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}