Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Thanh Lam said the holders of social network accounts, individuals and institutions, will be required to perform identification. This will be applied to foreign social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok as well.

According to Vu Ngoc Son from Vietnam National Cyber Security Technology Corporation (NCS), the identification of digital accounts, including social media, shared networks, OTT and other online services, is necessary for the sake of a healthy and civilized network environment, especially as many people’s activities are shifting from the real world into the digital environment, and many activities and interactions have disappeared from real life and now exist only in the digital environment.

Son said the management and identification of digital accounts will enable the legal system to be applied more uniformly and equally, regardless of offline or online. 

This will help eliminate bad and illegal content, such as fraud or harm to society, thus protecting the legitimate rights and benefits of individuals and institutions, and heightening individuals and institutions’ awareness and responsibilities when joining cyberspace.

Nguyen Minh Duc, the founder and CEO of CyRadar, said that requesting social media, including Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, to identify users is a necessity. 

When using real names and real accounts, they will take responsibility for their statements. They cannot say whatever they want, or curse and insult other people freely.

More importantly, the required identification will help mitigate fraud in cyberspace which is rampant, because competent agencies and platforms will more easily discover and handle violators.

Quyen Pham, Vice President of Vietnam Digital Content Creation Alliance, said that identification on social media accounts is a necessary measure to restrict negative phenomena such as cheating and toxic content that violates regulations on protecting cultural standards, and fine customs and traditions.

From the perspective of digital economy development, the compulsory identification will help reduce the digital content copyright infringement which is a burning issue.

Son of NCS said that some digital platforms use identification through the accounts of another service. For example, a Facebook social network account is set up via Google's email, and an online shopping account is created through integration from a Facebook account. 

Some people expressed their worry about the information privacy once they have to provide personal information to cross-border social media. However, experts affirmed no need to worry about that. Under the current laws, personal information must be stored in Vietnam.

Van Anh