Vietnam deploys 10,000 cyber warriors to fight ‘wrongful views’

Bloomberg

Vietnam is deploying a 10,000-member military cyber warfare unit to combat what the government sees as a growing threat of “wrongful views” proliferating on the internet, reports local media.
Force 47 has worked pro-actively against distorted information, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported, citing Nguyen Trong Nghia, deputy head of the general politics department under the Vietnam People’s Military. The National Assembly is debating a cybersecurity bill that would require technology companies to store certain data on servers in the country. In recent years, Vietnam has opened its doors to Silicon Valley, including Alphabet Inc. That’s unlike China, which blocked Facebook, Google and Twitter Inc., paving the way
for local services such as WeChat, QQ, Baidu Inc. and Weibo Corp.
to flourish.
Vietnam’s youthful population, almost 60 percent are under 35, has made the country a leader globally in terms of penetration of social networks, according to EMarketer Inc. More than 60 percent of Vietnamese are online, according to Nghia.
Representatives for Facebook and YouTube did not immediately respond to requests for comment.