Hot facebooker gets 2 years in prison for disseminating 'false' information

Dang Nhu Quynh, a well-known Facebooker in Hanoi, was sentenced Thursday to two years in prison for posting “false” information, negatively affecting businesses and the stock market.

“The defendant's behavior affected citizens' rights protected by the law; caused confusion in public opinion; did harm to the financial and stock markets, image and reputation of enterprises, and economic interests of many investors,” the judgment stated.

Quynh, 42, received the sentence for “abusing democratic freedom to infringe on the legal interests of the state, organizations and individuals per the Penal Code.”

In court, Quynh admitted his behavior, but said he had not known or had any disputes with the company chairman he had written about.

He said he had made the posts just to acquire more “likes”, not for bad purposes. “I was not awared of potential consequences, only later realized them,” Quynh added.

According to the trial panel, citizens have the right to democratic freedom to express their views on the basis of what the law allows and not to infringe on the rights of others, including personal identity and their political and economic interests.

The indictment shows that from the end of 2019, Quynh used his personal Facebook account to post his own articles and received a lot of interactions, shares and comments. By April 2022, this account had more than 300,000 followers.

On April 2, learning that a number of business leaders in the financial and real estate sectors had been handled for their violations, Quynh did not have accurate information, but still deduced and stated on his personal Facebook account that chairman of Tan Hoang Minh Group Do Anh Dung was handled as a criminal. His post received thousands of shares and interactions.

After authorities had announced official information about Dung, Quynh altered his article to make readers believe that he had known the information in advance.

In another case, Quynh speculated that the chairman of a corporation was investigated by authorities. On April 6, 2022, he published two articles with a photo of the chairman, stating that the entrepreneur possessed a complicated, big portfolio of companies listed on the stock exchange, and authorties would prosecute, investigate, and arrest this man.

The articles went viral on social media. In the following six days, the group’s shares were sold in large quantities by investors, and its market price and capitalization dropped sharply, while its price had been in an uptrend before.

As a result, the market capitalization of the stock decreased by more than VND5,200 billion ($209 million).

On April 12, a number of securities investors filed a complaint to authorities against Quynh about his abusing democratic freedom rights, infringing on an individual's reputation, honor, rights and interests, adversely affecting the company's brand and causing damage to its assets and investors.

On May 23, the State Securities Commission identified two articles of Quynh as one of the causes behind the negative performance of the stocks related to the chairman. Quynh was arrested on April 15.

Previously, in March 2020, Quynh had been summoned by the Ministry of Public Security’s Department of Cyber Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention (A05) to clarify the act of posting more than 200 "unverified" and "untrue" articles about Covid-19.