Foreign Ministry refutes Freedom House’s report on Internet freedom in VN

The Foreign Ministry’s deputy spokesperson Ngo Toan Thang

Speaking at a regular press conference in Ha Noi on November 7, Thang afffirmed that ensuring the rights to speech freedom and information access is Viet Nam’s consistent policy that is prescribed in the Constitution and law, and has been fully enforced in reality.

The State of Viet Nam always advocates promoting the development of Internet to serve national construction and development, as well as to meet the people’s demand for information exchange, study and work, he emphasized.

Reality has shown that Viet Nam is currently one of the countries with the fastest growth rate of Internet and social media use in the world, the deputy spokesperson said, adding that information technology and social media are being widely used in the country’s socio-economic and cultural life.

According to statistics, as of early 2019, Viet Nam recorded 60 million Internet users, accounting for over 60% of the total population and ranking 16th globally in terms of the number of Internet users.

In addition, the country was among the nations with a large number of social media users in the world, at 55 million.

 By Hoang Ha