Vietnam’s Facebook dissidents test the limits of Communist state

“This isn’t like China,” says Vietnamese activist ’Anh Chi’ at a noisy bar off one of the narrow streets of Hanoi’s Old Quarter. “They can’t shut Facebook down here.”

His 40,000 Facebook followers make him one of Vietnam’s better-known critics, but by no means the biggest in a Communist state whose attempts to crack down on dissidents have collided with the rapidly expanding reach of foreign-owned social media.

Vietnam’s President Tran Dai Quang this month called for unspecified tougher internet controls in the face of “hostile forces” that he said threatened not only cybersecurity but also “undermined the prestige of the leaders of the party and the state.”

Read the whole story from Reuters.

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