Vietnam seeks to require parents to register and supervise social-media accounts for their under-16 children and ban under-13 kids from posting, commenting, or sharing on social media, under draft rules of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
The proposals are part of draft amendments to Decree 147 on Internet-based services.
Under the draft, children under 16 could not open social-media accounts on their own. A parent or guardian will have to register the account using their own phone number or identity details, verify it, and take responsibility for supervising the content the child sees and the time spent online.
Social-media providers, both domestic and foreign, would have to set the highest privacy protection by default for child accounts, distribute age-appropriate contents, and detect and block materials involving violence, pornography, gambling, drugs, suicide and, dangerous activities. Service provide would also need enable channels to receive reports and to share information with state agencies.
Large cross-border platforms, defined as those drawing at least 1 million users per month, have extra duties, such as giving parents tools to monitor the content, friend lists, and screen time of children aged 13 to under 16. They also have to lock the posting, commenting, sharing, and reaction features for users under 13.
The draft would also require owners of accounts, channel, or community pages with at least 1 million followers or members to report their contact details to the ministry. Content managers at online news websites and social networks must have Vietnamese nationality and complete ministry-run training within 12 months of licensing.
By the end of 2025, Vietnam had about 85.6 million Internet users, or 84.2 percent of the population, according to official figures. Domestic and foreign social media platforms featured 110 million and 203 million accounts, respectively.