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Radio News: Facebook busy scrubbing views governments don't want to see

Jan 03, 2018 10:50 pm
Glyn Moody at TechDirt reports that Vietnam has an internet army of 10,000. The country has an internet monitoring unit called "Force 47" looking over posts for anti-government views. Bloomberg reports that "Facebook this year removed 159 accounts at Vietnam's behest, while YouTube took down 4,500 videos, or 90 percent of what the government requested, according to VietnamNet news." China also looks to quash its citizens online views, and Germany requires internet companies to delete "hate speech." Now England is threatening tax penalties on companies that don't take down "extremist" material. And The Intercept is reporting that Israel is forcing Facebook to remove pro-Palestinian views from its pages. So while Vietnam may have a 10,000-strong internet army, Google and Facebook say they are increasing their "safety" -- or censorship -- teams to 20,000 people.