Illustration photo. Source:Internet

1. Current situation of defending the Party’s ideological foundation, fighting to prevent wrongful and hostile views on social networks in Vietnam

In the context of hostile forces’ taking advantage of social networks to inflict damages to our national revolution, our Party and State have introduced many guidelines and solutions to fight against and reject wrongful and hostile views, defending the Party’s ideological background.

Firstly, resolutions and directives on the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation have been promulgated.Along with the development and implementation of political guidelines, great importance is attached to the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation; wrongful and hostile views are resolutely fought against; leadership and comprehensive direction of this important task have been increasingly emphasized and strengthened. Some directives and resolutions on this issue can be named as follows: Directive 34-CT / TW, dated April 17, 2009 of the Secretariat of the Party Central Committee (10th tenure) on “Intensifying the struggle against conspiracies and schemes of ‘peaceful evolution’ on the cultural and ideological fronts”; Resolution No.35-NQ/TW dated October 22, 2018 of the Politburo on “strengthening the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation, and the fight against wrongful and hostile views in the new context”, which is followed by seven main tasks and solutions. In particular, with the passing of the Law on Cyber Security by the National Assembly, a legal corridor has been set up to manage cyberspace, ensuring a safe and healthy network environment.

Secondly, strict management of internet and social networks has been strengthened

Having seen the birth and rapid growth of social network service providers in Vietnam such as Google, Facebook, etc., the Government, the Ministry of Information and Communications have worked with representatives of the host companies of social networking sites in Vietnam, requesting coordination in removing and blocking inappropriate contents which are against Vietnamese customs or violate the Vietnamese law. Along with that, many agencies, ministries and sectors have issued regulations on participation in social networks. Typically, the Vietnam Journalists’ Association has issued 10 regulations defining the professional ethics of Vietnamese journalists, in which Article 5 defines standards and responsibilities of journalists when participating in social networks and other media communication.

The Secretariat of the Party Central Committee and the Government has set up a number of directing and centralized steering committees and organized forces to fight against wrongful and hostile views and information.  After the Politburo’s Resolution 35, the Steering Committees 35 were established at all levels in order to strengthen the protection of the ideological foundation, and the fight against wrongful and hostile views.

Thirdly, the role of the press and media agencies has been well promoted in defending the Party’s ideological foundation, fighting to prevent and refute wrongful and hostile views

Along with the use of print and electronic newspapers, magazines, radio and television, press agencies have organized a force of bloggers and facebookers to fight against the “peaceful evolution” and refute wrongful views and malicious information on the internet. Bloggers, facebookers in the military and police forces have posted thousands of articles on blogs, fan pages, youtube channels and thousands of comments on Facebook, on domestic and foreign online newspapers to rebut wrongful and hostile views.

Despite some important achievements, our Party has objectively pointed out that the effect of our struggle to oppose wrongful and hostile views, preventing and combating the hostile forces’ plot of “peaceful evolution”, “self-evolving”, “self-transformation” in our internal contingent remains limited.

The leadership and direction of prevention and refutation against distorted, wrongful, and hostile information is at times slow, passive, and sporadic while hostile forces’ methods and means of fighting are constantly changing.

Some articles that struggle and refute wrongful and hostile views are simple and lack of scientific reasons. The work of summarization and theoretical research is still outdated, inadequate, not closely linked between theoretical research and theoretical struggle, making the struggle work not sharp and ineffective.

The provision of official information to guide social opinion in the face of attacks against the Party’s ideological foundation on social networks is slow, out of date and of low effectiveness.

The communication and education for officials, Party members and people on basic cyber security, identifying malicious social networking sites is not really effective.

There are limitations in the political theory and theoretical staff education and training. In recent years, the number of people enrolled in political theory has decreased, especially at postgraduate level. If there is no suitable solution, this may lead to a shortage of this team in the future. This can affect the effectiveness of the Party’s ideological protection and fight against wrongful and hostile views.

2. Some solutions to strengthen the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation and the fight against wrongful and hostile views on social networks in Vietnam in the coming time.

In order to promote achievements and overcome limitations in the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation, and fight against wrongful and hostile views, it is necessary to implement the following solutions:

Firstly, mechanisms and policies for leaders, managers and users of social networks should be devised and perfected

It is necessary to focus on building and perfecting the Party’s regulations to enhance the responsibility of cadres and Party members to fight against hostile forces’ plots, tricks and methods; to build mechanisms to protect people participating in this struggle.

Regulations are needed to distinguish constructive comments from wrongful views of hostile forces. This is a very important issue to promote democracy, strengthening exchanges, dialogues and criticism to build and perfect the guidelines and policies on national development.

It is essential to improve regulations on setting examples among cadres and Party members, especially high-ranking cadres in the fight against wrongful and hostile views. This should be considered as an important indicator to evaluate the performance of Party members. In cases where Party members (including high-ranking cadres, former high-ranking leaders) have deviated views, not in line with the Party’s guidelines and policies, and have been communicated and educated, but refused to correct their mistakes, it is necessary to resolutely take punitive measures such as warning, dismissal, expulsion, even criminal punishment if serious violations are committed as prescribed in law.

Secondly, the content and methods of protecting the Party’s ideological foundation, fighting against wrongful and hostile views on social networks should be built and renewed

It is essential to combine the “building” and “fighting” in the content that defend the ideological foundation of the Party, fighting against wrongful and hostile views. “Building” is on a long-term basis while “fighting” is drastic and effective.

In the coming time, the contents and forms of website and pages of Party agencies, the State, and online socio-political organizations should be more various and diversified in order to dominate the cyber world. Positive information should be actively posted on social networks, including basic contents of Marxism - Leninism, Ho Chi Minh Thought, values and fine traditions of the nation, victories of the resistance against the invasion, achievements in national renewal, creative application of Marxism - Leninism in Vietnam, images of the homeland and the people of Vietnam.

Theoretical and practical evidence should be paid due attention to as a basis for fighting against wrongful and hostile views. Dialogues should be exchanged, promoting democracy in theoretical research. It is necessary to take advantage of the opinions of prestigious people, intellectuals, writers, artists, village elders, village chiefs and religious dignitaries.

The information necessary to protect the Party’s ideological foundation should be spread in social networks through young people, especially students-the high-quality resources of the country-so that it can reach society widely. In political theory training schools and Party’s schools, it is possible to organize teams, groups of students and key students to protect the Party’s ideological foundation, and to prevent and fight against wrongful and hostile views on social networks. It can be through a branch or Youth Union organization to assign appropriate tasks, such as “like”, “share” or write articles and information that protect the Party’s ideological foundation online.

The effectiveness of political theory education through new media channels and in the national education system should be strengthened. Information technology should be applied in training and fostering political theory. Forms of communication and education through social networks, forms of political theory online learning should be enhanced.

The pioneering role of the contingent of lecturers, experts and students of the Party School system in defending the Party’s ideological foundation, fighting to prevent wrongful and hostile views on social networks should be promoted. The responsibility of officials, lecturers and students when participating in social networks should be enhanced. The responsibility of each officer, lecturer and student of the Party School system should be clearly defined as a pioneer soldier in the revolutionary cause of the Party, actively and voluntarily defending the ideological foundation of the Party, fighting to prevent wrongful and hostile views on social networks. Research results on political theory, new contents and methods to protect the Party’s ideological foundation, and fight to prevent wrongful and hostile views on social networks should be widely shared and spread.

The role of press and media agencies when participating in forums on social networks, participating directly in the struggle to protect the Party’s ideological foundation, and prevent wrongful and hostile views on social networks should be further promoted. The press and media agencies need to proactively and actively spread official and correct information about events, the policies of the Party and State in order to orient the public opinion and contribute to reverse malicious information on social networks. The sense of responsibility of the contingent of journalists, reporters and editors on social networks should be increased.

Thirdly, the training and fostering of core cadres to protect the Party’s ideological foundation, fight against wrongful and hostile views on social networks should be promoted

In order to promote the role of actors in defending the Party’s ideological foundation, fighting to prevent wrongful and hostile views on social networks, it is necessary to implement a number of solutions for team training and core staff fostering as follows:

(1) The need for training and retraining core cadres should be identified and relevant strategies should be developed to strengthen the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation, and fight against wrongful and hostile views on social networks. Especially, for the contingent of cadres working on ideological and theoretical work on Marxism - Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought, it is necessary to improve the quality and quantity of this contingent in order to ensure that the Party’s ideological foundation is protected and developed in the new context. To this end, it is essential to have a strategy to train a contingent of political theorists in a long term, at master’s and doctoral levels, with competences in foreign language and information technology and potentials to become good theoreticians on the front of combating wrongful and hostile views. In addition, it is necessary to have enrollment policies in the direction of creating favorable conditions to attract prospective students and improve the quality of graduates majored in political theory disciplines. There is a policy of exemption from tuition fees or scholarships according to a certain number of targets for graduate training in political theory in the fields of Marxism - Leninism, Ho Chi Minh Thought to attract students of these disciplines. On the other hand, it is necessary to further improve the quality of training in political theory disciplines through the standardization of training programs, content and methods, and enhancing scientific research for lecturers of these disciplines.

(2) The training objectives, programs, and contents for the core staff should be clearly defined; the training and fostering objects should be clearly segmented to ensure the systematization, in accordance with the training objectives and input of the training and fostering process; methods and forms of training and fostering a contingent of core cadres should be vigorously renovated to perform this task.

(3) Technical and material foundations for training and fostering of core cadres to protect the foundation of ideology, to fight against wrongful and hostile views on social networks should be continually built and perfected.

In order for the above solutions to be implemented effectively, it is necessary to create a favorable mechanism to organize second degree training courses in ministries and localities for the training disciplines of political theory, media, and ideological work, management of ideological - cultural activities to supplement the core force to protect the ideological foundation, to fight against wrongful and hostile views. It is necessary to focus on fostering in-depth for the core staff, especially the staff of press and media agencies in order to further promote the role of the press and the media in the fight against wrongful and hostile arguments; contribute to process false and distorted information in the fields of thought, theory, literature, and art. In addition, it is necessary to look for solutions to enhance international cooperation in training and fostering trainers and experts.

Fourthly, the synergy of the political system and social organizations should be used in the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation, fighting against wrongful and hostile views on social networks

Agencies in the political system must regularly follow the directions, orientations and instructions of the Party Politburo and the Secretariat in the fight against wrongful and hostile views, protecting the ideological foundation of the Party. Depending on their functions and tasks, annually, it is necessary to develop specific plans, programs and solutions to implement the content, fighting against wrongful and hostile views, to protect the ideological foundation of the Party.

The leadership, direction, and review should be strengthened to actively grasp the situation, early detecting activities of reactionaries. Blogs, Facebook accounts, websites, forums that often publish untrue information, misrepresent and destroy the Party’s ideological foundation should be regularly reviewed and promptly detected.

The role of Party committees, Party organizations, leaders, communication and education committees at all levels, the Steering Committee 35, the functional agencies at all levels, especially the role and responsibility of cadres and Party members to set examples should be promoted.

Party committees and authorities at all levels should actively communicate and strengthen dialogue with the people; actively and flexibly participate in specific social issues; regularly maintain, effectively implement the coordination with functional agencies. The role of the press agencies should be brought into play to create a widespread and strict posture in the fight against the opposing wrongful and hostile views, and protect the Party’s ideological foundation.

It is necessary to raise awareness and vigilance about manifestations of dogma, opportunisms and pragmatism on social networks among cadres and Party members of the political system and social organizations.

It is necessary to focus on building an all-people force to protect the Party’s ideological foundation, fight against wrongful and hostile views on social networks. That force should include a large number of experts, leaders, managers, writers, artists, journalists, teachers... and masses of people at home and abroad, creating a solid all-people disposition, and making wrongful and hostile views not be found on social networks.

Fifthly, the law on internet use and social networks should be perfected, the application of science - technology and technology should be enhanced to protect the Party’s ideological foundation, fight against wrongful and hostile views

This is also to ensure an equal and transparent legal environment, creating a legal framework to deter and handle individuals and organizations’ violations that publish fake, misleading andreactionaryinformation on the internet and social networks. Management and control activities for social networking sites should be strengthened and technical measures should be actively taken to prevent access to “malicious” websites.

The application of information technology and artificial intelligence should be stepped up, investment in facilities and electronic equipment in service of the task of combating against wrongful and hostile views on the internet and social networks should be paid due attention to.

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ASSOC. PROF., DR. MAI DUC NGOC

Department of Training Management,

Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics