[ti:New Vietnam Law Bans News Stories From Social Media Sites] [ar:Jim Tedder] [al:Technology Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, [00:02.38]this is the Technology Report. [00:05.52]Internet activists and human rights groups [00:09.16]are criticising a decree that is set [00:12.45]to go into effect in Vietnam on September 1st. [00:16.94]The order says blogs and social media sites in Vietnam [00:22.69]should be used only to share personal information. [00:28.07]It aims to ban social media users and bloggers [00:32.70]from posting other information, such as news stories. [00:37.94]Local media reports say the decree states that such sites [00:43.77]are "not allowed to quote, gather or summarize information [00:49.25]from press organizations or government websites." [00:54.63]Prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung approved decree 72 in July. [01:01.06]Internet activists say this is an attempt [01:05.09]by the communist government to further restrict freedom of speech. [01:10.34]Rights groups say the decree's requirements are overly broad [01:15.96]and will be used to act against government critics. [01:20.66]Others criticized a statement by Le Nam Thang, [01:25.94]the Deputy Minister of Information and Communications. [01:30.03]State media reported him of saying that the law aims [01:35.01]to help web users "find correct and clean information on the Internet." [01:41.84]But blogger Huynh Ngoc Chenh says that is a matter of personal choice. [01:50.40]She says, People should be able to decide for themselves [01:55.38]whether information is good or bad. [01:59.02]And she says, Vietnamese citizens do not need [02:03.81]the government to coach them on how to think. [02:07.05]The decree sets out very broad categories of speech [02:11.83]that officials could consider as troublesome. [02:15.72]It includes warnings about information [02:18.80]that is against Vietnam or undermines certain principles. [02:25.07]Shawn Crispin is the southeast Asia representative [02:30.11]for the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ. [02:35.10]He says the increased restrictions suggest [02:38.88]that the government thinks it has lost control of criticism [02:43.62]that is so widespread on social media. [02:47.65]"The campaign has indeed intensified over the last year. [02:53.07]Authorities seem to be using the tactic of singling out individual [02:56.71]critical bloggers as a way of sending a signal to the larger community [03:00.51]that this will not be tolerated." [03:02.35]It is unclear how the government means [03:05.49]to enforce such widespread restrictions, [03:08.89]and there is no word on what punishment [03:12.72]would be given to those who break the law. [03:15.81]But the deputy director for the Asia division at Human Watch, [03:21.59]Phil Robertson says widespread enforcement [03:26.03]may not be necessary to gain the government's desire to effect. [03:30.47]"This is a law that has been established for selective persecution," [03:36.47]he says, "this is a law that will be used against certain people [03:41.50]who have become a thorn in the side of the authorities in Hanoi." [03:46.93]And that's the Technology Report from VOA Learning English. [03:52.66]I'm Jim Tedder. [03:54.15]¸ü¶àÌýÁ¦Çë·ÃÎÊ51voa.com