Experts believe that cryptocurrency is a growing international trend which Vietnam cannot resist.

Vietnam needs to have its own social network and search engine to replace foreign platforms Facebook and Google, said Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung at a recent meeting with IT firms in HCMC.

Social media platforms have outpaced other channels including schools, friends and traditional media to become the leading source for job finding.

More than 51 million Vietnamese access the internet, social media and apps through their smartphones daily, according to a recently released report by Appota Corporation.

All foreign firms, especially cross-border service providers such as Google, YouTube, Facebook and the like, must comply with Vietnamese law while operating in the country, stated Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung.

News organisations have struggled in the past two decades with readership moving from the page to computers and mobile devices, and that struggle is set to continue, according to a top journalist.

Spending on online advertising in Vietnam in 2018 reached $550 million, including Facebook’s $235 million, Google’s $152 million, and the remaining $150 million divided among local advertising firms.

Facebook’s newly developed video platform has shown vulnerabilities which can be exploited by people to earn billions of dong a month from unlicensed content.

The revised Law on Tax Management, passed by the National Assembly, sets out regulations to collect taxes from Google, YouTube, Facebook and the like from July 1 next year, even if they do not open representative offices in Vietnam.

In fact, both Facebook and Google have been using content of entertainment and news articles, so thanks to this, gaining hundreds of millions of US dollars in annual advertising revenue in Vietnam.

Local competitors are complaining about Netflix which they claim is dodging its tax obligation and does not supervise content in line with Vietnamese laws, reported VN Investment Review.

While the majority of Vietnamese prohibit their children from having sex at an early age, others are more open and do not consider this to be a moral problem.

Global tech giants namely Facebook, Google, and YouTube have deleted from its platforms a number of offensive content at the request by the Vietnamese government.

The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has set a regulation which would prohibit teachers and students from disseminating, propagating, making comments and showing the images that may adversely affect the education environment.

The illegal service came out soon after Facebook became popular in Vietnam and it is now the livelihood of a high number of people. The service is offered on the internet and Facebook.

Foreign firms like Facebook and Google dominate the digital ad market in Vietnam but pay no taxes, a minister says.

 UK lawmakers have accused Facebook of violating data privacy and competition laws in a report on social media disinformation that also says CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed "contempt" toward parliament by not appearing before them.

Facebook's endless PR crises don't appear to be hurting its bottom line. The company posted a record $6.9 billion profit for the final three months of 2018 -- a jump of 61% from the same period a year earlier and well ahead of Wall Street estimates.

VietNamNet Bridge - Many students are experiencing anxiety when they have to ‘live away’ from their mobile phones. 

The year 2018 saw many well-known CEOs of technology firms change jobs. They included former Microsoft Vietnam CEO Vu Minh Tri, former Uber Vietnam CEO Dang Viet Dung and Facebook Vietnam Country Director Le Diep Kieu Trang.