World News for Students of English

04-01-2019 07:00

A new cybersecurity law in Vietnam took effect on January 1st. Tech companies have a year to comply to everything that the law says.

For example Facebook has to store user data in Vietnam, must provide information to the government (if the government asks for it), and must remove certain content if the government orders it. Foreign tech companies in Vietnam that have more than 10,000 Vietnamese users must have offices in Vietnam.

Some people criticise the law. They say that it gives the government too much power and that it is not good for free speech. The government, on the other hand, says that the law protects people’s information and helps fight cybercrime.

It is interesting that the American government wrote to Facebook and Google and asked not to comply to the new law.

Difficult words: comply (follow a rule or orders), store (have on servers), government (the ‘bosses’ of a country), content (text, picture or videos on Facebook).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.