Rumors made up by online newspapers often spread rapidly around the internet because no strict penalties have ever been imposed on the fabrication of news stories in Vietnam.

Part 1: Online newspapers fabricate rumors to attract readers Part 2: Online newspapers use tricks to fake page views Part 3:

It is not only the reporters of such stories who are to blame; the silence of the victims of such stories has worsened the situation.

Besides making up sensational stories to increase readership, online newspapers also use technical tricks to increase page views and make money from advertisements.

Tricks to cheat

A complicated computer programming technique enables one to increase the number of page views and ranking of a website. In general, there are two ways to cheat: installing a computer program to automatically increase the page views of a website, or installing applications such as games, horoscopes, or lotteries within stories to attract more hits.

Some websites also set up their own team of Facebook users to manually spread story links throughout the internet community.

A simple way to see if a website is faking its page views is to check the number of comments from its readers. The number of comments from readers and the number of technical page views should be proportionate, a computer programmer said.

Websites pay anywhere from 150 VND to 500 VND for each false hit, depending on the quality of the program installed on it.

These tricks are used not only to increase page views but also to increase ‘likes’ on Facebook.

The more page views there are, the more money the website makes from advertisements.

Ms. Nguyen Minh Huong, general director of the advertising company Golden, said goods advertised on websites that specialize in publishing sensational stories are mostly of low quality because the products have no license to advertisement on an official newspaper website.

Ms. Amy Kunrojpanya, head of communication and public affairs of the Greater Mekong subregion of Google, mentioned that some sensational online newspapers fabricate stories about certain products to put pressure on its producers and distributors to buy advertisements and have the fake story taken down.

No strict penalty

Under law, many websites that specialize in spreading sensational stories and masquerade as online newspapers are not licensed to publish news. They can only be called “news websites,” and are only allowed to republish stories from other newspapers without editing or shortening them.

However, most of the “news websites” violate this regulation.

Some even distort the regulation by pairing up with a newspaper so that they can post their stories by sending them to the paper to publish first. This is advantageous for newspapers, which are all state-owned in Vietnam, because then they have more news to publish for free.

However, prestigious newspapers with wide readerships will never resort to such actions.

Lawyer Bui Van Kha from the Ho Chi Minh City Bar said Vietnam has regulations and laws to punish it but the penalties are not heavy enough to prevent violators from repeating the offence.

Along with news websites that have no publishing license, several online newspapers also fabricate stories to attract readership, said the press critics Pham Xuan Nguyen.

He added that if the State already accused individuals of publishing wrong news to distort State policies, the State can definitely punish the news websites or online newspapers for fabricating stories.

But news outlets have been fabricating stories for years.