Facebook must comply with Vietnamese law and should cooperate with the government in creating a secure and healthy environment, a spokeperson has said.

IT companies like Facebook are required to comply with Vietnamese law

As a foreign-invested company operating in Vietnam, Facebook has commited to complying with Vietnamese law and the government of Vietnam will see how its commitments are fulfilled, Deputy Spokesperson of Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ngo Toan Thang said at a press conference on April 23.

Vietnam has developed digital infrastructure to facilitate the operations of foreign companies and supports them in terms of telecommunications on the condition that they abide by Vietnam’s law and fulfil all tax obligations and social responsibilities, the official noted.

“IT companies should cooperate with the government in creating safe and healthy environment,” Thang said in answering a question by DPA on whether Facebook is required to limit access to contents that are deemed illegal in Vietnam.

On April 21, Reuters reported that Facebook’s local servers in Vietnam were taken offline early this year, slowing local traffic to a crawl until it agreed to significantly increase the censorship of “anti-state” posts for local users.

Vietnam has more than 65 million Facebook users who use this social network as the main platform for both e-commerce and expressions of political dissent, Reuters added.