The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will inspect and impose an administrative fine for Youtube’s advertising violations.

The decision was announced through a legal document recently signed by Deputy Minister Le Khanh Hai to respond the legal document issued 22 February from the Ministry of Information and Communications requiring the culture ministry to inspect foreign individuals and organisations providing cross-border advertising activities on websites in Viet Nam.

Mr Hai cited item 1, article 14 of the Government decree No 181 issued in November 2013, which states that a website run by foreign individuals and organisations providing cross-border advertising services and profiting from advertising in Viet Nam are forced to obey Vietnamese regulations.

Specifically, foreign individuals and organisations are required to inform via documents to Vietnamese managerial agencies, providing name, address and the main business activity of the company providing advertising services in Viet Nam, Mr Hai said.

However, Youtube has yet to inform the culture ministry of its authorised advertising service role in Viet Nam. Therefore, Youtube will suffer the administrative fine, he said.

Under the item 1, article 55 of the Government decree No 158/2013/ND-CP, a foreign individual or organisation will get a fine of 2-5 million VND (US$88-220) for not providing relevant registration information.

Mr Hai also said that the content of clips posted in Youtube are under the management purview of the information ministry. Thus, Youtube’s clips discovered to contain bad content will be dealt with by the information ministry.

In a related move, Mr Le Quang Tu Do, the Deputy Head of the information ministry’s Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information, told Vietnamnet online newspaper that the ministry has discovered advertising inserted in Youtube videos with pornographic, slanderous or anti-government conten..

These are believed to be serious violations in need of urgent solutions, which will require co-operation from relevant agencies, for example, the culture ministry, he said.

Mr Do also said the information ministry was asking a meeting with representatives of Youtube and Google to deal with the violations following the circular no 38 signed by Minister Truong Minh Tuan in December 2016.

Under the national government’s Decree 72/2013/ND-CP, individuals and organisations are forbidden from taking advantage of internet services and websites to spread information that is against the State and does harm to national security and social order and safety; propagandises wars and terrorism; causes hatred and conflicts between peoples and religions; and incites violence.

(Source: VNS)