CafeLand.vn, a popular real estate and business news website, has been fined VND 25 million or US$1000 for misquoting sources and for ‘journalizing’. It has also reportedly had its licence to operate a website revoked for three months, however, as of writing the site was still online.
In Vietnam, the Law on Press distinguishes between different kinds of media outlets with varying degrees of newsgathering permitted and subsequently government control. CafeLand looks to have been licenced as an ‘electronic magazine’ which is, more-or-less, a trade publication. It had, however, per the assessment of the Department of Information and Communications of Ho Chi Minh City, extended its operations beyond its remit, becoming more like a news outlet and engaging in more extensive newsgathering.
This practice is known as ‘journalisation’ and is detailed in Decision 1418/QD-BTTTT.
Prosecutions of this nature are becoming more common–Zing News, for example, was fined and taken offline last year for three months. Not specific details have been release as to what Zing did. It has been reported, however, that CafeLand got the attention of the authorities for misquoting a source.