Vietnam leads in number of accounts removed by Facebook

Facebook has removed 290 fake accounts in Vietnam so far this year, making the country top in number of account cancellations.

Of those fake accounts, some had forged that of the Health Ministry to post fake news about the Covid-19 pandemic.

The removals were made via coordination between Facebook and the authorities of Vietnam, Le Quang Tu Do, deputy head of the Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information under the Ministry of Information and Communications, told a conference in HCMC on Friday.

Aside from the fake accounts, Facebook also removed 330 pages advertising online games and gambling as well as 2,200 links that promote trading of illegal products and services.

In the past year, Vietnam has led the world in terms of the number of fake accounts being removed and violating posts being deleted by Facebook, Do said.

Aside from Facebook, the authority had also worked with YouTube to either remove channels with toxic, offending and anti-government contents or block advertisements for them.

In the year to date, more than 29,000 YouTube videos and 24 accounts have been removed.

Previously, YouTube only removed or blocked ads for channels whose owners had been prosecuted in Vietnam but now, it will do the same for all videos deemed to have toxic contents by authorities, he said.

Vietnam has so far licensed 800 social media platforms and the number of social media accounts has risen from 47 million in 2018 to 96 million this year, Minister Nguyen Manh Hung told legislators earlier this month.

Facebook and YouTube account for the biggest amount of users in the country.

In 2018, there were about 54.7 million internet users in Vietnam.

The figure rose to 59.2 million last year and is estimated at 63.6 million this year. By 2023, it was forecasted to be 75.7 million, according to German data portal Statista.

Statista also said Facebook had removed almost 1.5 billion fake accounts in the second quarter this year, down from 1.7 billion fake accounts in the preceding quarter.