Vietnam orders ban on popular messaging app Telegram
Science and technology ministry accuses messaging app of not cooperating in combating alleged crimes committed by users in Vietnam.
Vietnam has ordered the country’s telecommunication service providers to block the messaging app Telegram for not cooperating in combating alleged crimes committed by users of the platform, in a move that Telegram said was surprising.
A report on the government’s news portal on Friday said Vietnam’s telecommunications department at the Ministry of Science and Technology sent letters to internet service providers warning that there were “signs of law violation” on Telegram.
The ministry said internet service providers should “deploy solutions and measures to prevent Telegram’s activities in Vietnam”.
The letter dated May 21 ordered the providers to take measures against Telegram and report back to the ministry by June 2.
Almost 70 percent of 9,600 channels on Telegram in Vietnam contain “poisonous and bad information”, the government said in its report on the app, quoting police. Groups and associations on Telegram, involving tens of thousands of people, had disseminated “antistate documents” and were involved in “reactionary activities”, the government added.
The government also claimed that some groups on Telegram also used the app to sell users’ data, and were involved in drug trafficking or had “terrorist” links.
Vietnam’s hardline administration generally moves swiftly to stamp out dissent and arrest critics, especially those who find an audience on social media.
New rules came into force in Vietnam last year that required platforms such as Facebook and TikTok to verify user identities and hand over data to authorities, in what critics described as the latest attack on freedom of expression in the communist-ruled country.
In a statement to the Reuters news agency, a representative of Telegram said the company was “surprised” by the Vietnamese government’s move.
“We have responded to legal requests from Vietnam on time. The deadline for the response is May 27, and we are processing the request,” the Telegram representative said.
An official at Vietnam’s Science and Technology Ministry told the Reuters news agency that the decision followed Telegram’s failure to share user data with the government as part of criminal investigations.
Telegram was still available in Vietnam as of Friday.
According to the Data Report website, there were 79.8 million individuals using the internet in Vietnam at the start of 2025, and according to the data extraction company SOAX, there were 11.8 million Telegram users.
With close to one billion users worldwide, Telegram has been involved in controversies across the world related to security and data breach concerns.
Telegram’s Russian-born founder and chief executive, Pavel Durov, was detained at a Paris airport and later charged with several counts of failing to curb extremist and “terrorist” content on the app. He reportedly remains in France and is unable to leave without authorisation from authorities.
Al Jazeera – May 24, 2025