Nguyen Thi Le Nam (also known as Nam Em) has become the latest celebrity fined for administrative violations because of ‘statements on social networks that caused noise and raised anxiety among the public; and the act of providing information that insulted famous people and national heroes’. 

The behaviors are not serious enough for criminal prosecution under Decree No15 dated February 3, 2020 on administrative fines in the fields of post, telecommunications, radio frequency, information technology and electronic transactions.

Nam Em has been fined VND37.5 million.

According to MIC’s Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information’s (ABEI) director Le Quang Tu Do, current laws stipulate fines between VND5 million and VND10 million in similar cases, and local agencies mostly choose around VND7.5 million.

For most people, the administrative penalty causes a big impact. However, it is not heavy enough to deter celebrities, artists, KOL, sellers on social networks and e-commerce platforms.

Do said at the regular March press conference held by MIC several days ago that in many cases, artists sign advertising contracts with the value of up to billions of dong, but it doesn’t matter if they are fined hundreds of millions of dong.

MIC is concurrently doing two things. First, the ministry has submitted to the government a draft decree to replace Decree 72, supplementing a series of regulations related to activities on social networks and cyberspace.

And once the new decree replaces the old one, MIC will propose raising the administrative fine levels to deter violators, slated for mid-2024. If necessary, the violations will be subject to criminal proceedings.

MIC is facing problems handling violators. In many cases, it is impossible to identify the names of violators, their addresses, or violators who live overseas. The ministry is considering measures to fight against the ‘virtual identities’ by requiring authentication of social network users with mobile phone numbers. 

Do said the state agency faced problems when developing tools to can help supervise images and videos in real time. MIC has met with large technology firms to discuss the establishment of video monitoring tools.

The ministry has also requested cross-border platforms to develop livestream monitoring tools and take responsibility in preventing toxic content.

Tinh Le