[ATimes] When logging onto Minds, an open-source social media platform, it is hard to miss the huge number of posts written in Vietnamese.Of the platform’s over one million users, about 10% hail from Vietnam, according to recent media reports. What’s more, roughly 100,000 of those Vietnamese users signed up in the period of just one week, the reports said.That number is set to grow as internet users in the authoritarian nation seek out new secure online communication platforms after the ruling Communist Party passed a new cybersecurity law last month that requires big technology companies like Google and Facebook to open domestic offices and store their users’ data locally.
They will also be expected to censor any offending content within 24 hours of being asked by a ministry. That means "there is now no safe place left in Vietnam for people to speak freely," said Clare Algar, Amnesty International’s director of global operations, in a statement.