An unexpected incident occurred when Meta technology company's services including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads all stopped working globally on March 5. — Photo http://nguoilambaothanhhoa.vn

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese internet users need to avoid depending on a single digital platform for important services in life.

An unexpected incident occurred when Meta technology company's services, including Facebook, Instagram and Threads, all stopped working globally on March 5. All activities were only resumed after about two hours.

The report from the Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) said that this is not the first time Meta's platforms have been attacked by an incident, but previously this system was interrupted for nearly six hours in 2021.

Most users of social media platforms will be panic and fear of losing their accounts when encountering unexpected problems.

If accounts are lost, users would not be able to access other services, leading to disruption of a series of tasks, even important services in daily life such as business, communication with partners, financial and health care services.

Furthermore, online fraud may appear following Meta's incident. This incident also brings opportunities for other social media platforms, including Vietnamese social media platforms.

Providing comparative figures on the proportion of users and development opportunities for other social media platforms, the MIC’s Information Centre compiled that there was a sudden increase in traffic to Zalo – a Make-in-Việt Nam social platform – at the time the incident occurred more than two times the daytime traffic. Normally, the traffic at 10pm decreases by half compared to daytime.

“Similar incidents for international digital platforms as well as fibre optic cable breakage incidents, are opportunities for Make-in-Việt Nam digital platforms, an opportunity to promote cloud technology development in Việt Nam," the online Journal on Information and Communications quoted the Ministry of Information and Communications.

Regarding to long-term benefits, the MIC said that it was very risky for press and media agencies to depend on a single media platform, not only the risk of depending on the decision-making power of the platform, but also the risk when that platform crashes.

Therefore, currently, the MIC has steadily developed communication channels on Facebook, Zalo, Tiktok and continues to develop strongly on YouTube and Instagram platforms.

The ministry emphasised that this incident was a huge lesson for Vietnamese digital platforms with many users, especially multi-service platforms like Zalo and VNeID which are closely associated with the daily lives of millions of people.

Developing Make-in-Việt Nam digital platform

To ensure and protect the safety and stability of the system of social media platforms, especially for Vietnamese users today, specialised units are required to continue to disseminate information to people to avoid depending on a single social network for important services in life.

Along with that, specialised units are proposed to send warnings to digital platforms with many users, providing services related to people's daily lives, such as Zalo, VNeID, VSSID to always prepare backup plans to ensure service stability.

In particular, press and media agencies need to actively promote the benefits of and encourage people to use Make-in-Việt Nam platforms.

Professional agencies need to promote and disseminate knowledge on how to defend against and handle similar situations.

Specialised units under the Ministry of Information and Communications will continue to promote strong development of the Make-in-Việt Nam digital platform. — VNS