Vietnam threatens to shut down Facebook over censorship requests

Facebook serves about 60 million users in Vietnam. — Reuters

HANOI: Vietnam has threatened to shut down Facebook in the country if it does not bow to government pressure to censor more local political content on its platform, a senior official at the US social media giant said.

Facebook complied with a government request in April to significantly increase its censorship of "anti-state" posts for local users, but Vietnam asked the company again in August to step up its restrictions of critical posts, the official said.