SEC. 5. ACTIONS TO COMBAT ONLINE CENSORSHIP AND 
SURVEILLANCE IN VIETNAM. 
(a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds the following: 
(1) Vietnam continues to have one of the 
world’s most restrictive internet environments, with 
pervasive filtering of content and the frequent ar-
rests of bloggers and others whose only offense is to 
advocate online for positions different than those 
held by the government. 
(2) Since 2013, the Government of Vietnam has 
issued laws and decrees, including a cybersecurity 
law, that increased its ability to surveil its citizens 
without judicial oversight or recourse. The cyberse-
curity law has been used to charge Vietnamese citi-
zens with vague crimes of ‘‘negating revolutionary 
achievements’’ and distributing ‘‘misleading informa-
tion among the people’’. Vietnam’s Penal Code and 
Decree 15 have also been used to render many legiti-
mate online activities illegal, leading to the arrest 
and detentions of political prisoners. 
(3) The Government of Vietnam uses the cyber-
security law to require United States companies to 
store information in Vietnam, censor social media 
posts on demand, and to turn over sensitive personal 
information 
about 
users. 
Companies 
such 
as 
Facebook and Google comply with these requests, in-
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cluding through the censorship of social media con-
tent of United States citizens and permanent resi-
dent aliens. 
(4) United States companies Facebook and 
YouTube have been instrumental in this crackdown, 
complying with Vietnam’s request to censor and 
‘‘geoblock’’ content determined to violate local Viet-
namese law, which often contradicts international 
law and Vietnam’s treaty obligations. 
(5) In the first half of 2020, Facebook in-
creased its content restrictions in Vietnam by 983 
percent, a dramatic increase from the second half of 
2019. 
(6) Facebook complied with 90 percent of Viet-
nam’s censorship requests in 2020 and YouTube 
with 95 percent of such requests, a fact the Govern-
ment of Vietnam noted with satisfaction. 
(7) The local legal provisions that directly en-
abled Facebook and YouTube’s censorship, Articles 
117 and 331 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, also were 
used to imprison most of the 27 prisoners of con-
science who were jailed in 2020. 
(8) A free and open internet and the free flow 
of news and information— 
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(A) are fundamental components of United 
States foreign policy because they foster eco-
nomic growth, protect individual liberties, and 
advance national security; 
(B) are critical to the advancement of both 
United States economic interests and inter-
nationally recognized human rights globally; 
and 
(C) are severely hindered by Vietnam’s cy-
bersecurity law which would allow the Govern-
ment of Vietnam to access private data, spy on 
users, require United States businesses to turn 
over personally identifiable information or block 
content of users, including outside of Vietnam, 
and further restrict already limited online 
speech. 
(b) STATEMENT OF POLICY.—It is the policy of the 
United States to— 
(1) pursue an open and free internet in Viet-
nam as an issue promoting United States economic 
interests and advancing internationally recognized 
human rights; 
(2) engage all appropriate United States Gov-
ernment agencies to promote the free flow of news 
and information in Vietnam; 
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(3) use all appropriate United States diplomatic 
instruments to pressure the Government of Vietnam 
to halt requests to force social media companies to 
block accounts and content of individuals whose con-
tent the Government disapproves; 
(4) use all available diplomatic instruments 
available to pursue trade policies with Vietnam that 
expand internet freedom and the information econ-
omy in Vietnam by— 
(A) ensuring the free flow of information 
across the global network; 
(B) 
promoting 
stronger 
international 
transparency rules; and 
(C) ensuring fair and equal treatment of 
online services regardless of country of origin; 
and 
(5) require companies with contracts with the 
United States Government that accede to requests of 
the Government of Vietnam to engage in censorship 
or to reveal sensitive personal information to report 
such requests to the Department of State at the 
time such requests occur and to report the nature of 
such requests and the companies’ responses publicly. 
(c) ACTIONS.—The Office of Internet Freedom of the 
United States Agency for Global Media and the Internet 
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Freedom and Business and Human Rights Section in the 
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the 
Department of State shall take such actions as may be 
necessary to— 
(1) prioritize the immediate distribution of cen-
sorship circumvention tools for computers and smart 
phones in Vietnam; and 
(2) prioritize projects to ensure the safety and 
privacy of bloggers and journalists and human rights 
defenders in Vietnam. 
(d) REPORT.—The Secretary of State, in consultation 
with the Secretary of Commerce and the United States 
Trade Representative, shall submit to the appropriate con-
gressional committees a report that outlines a strategy 
to— 
(1) promote internet freedom and the free flow 
of news and information in Vietnam; and 
(2) promote efforts to assist United States 
internet companies to fulfill their stated missions to 
promote openness, transparency, and connectivity by 
opposing requests by the Government of Vietnam to 
remove political speech or content of journalists, es-
pecially when content is removed from the accounts 
of users in the United States. 
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