Despite significant economic reform and a willingness to embrace social change, the party in Vietnam does not tolerate criticism. Since being re-elected in 2016, its leader Nguyen Phu Trong has cracked down on dissidents and activists. According to a spokesman for Amnesty, at least 16 people have been arrested, detained, or convicted this year for posting anti-government content on Facebook. Another 12 political prisoners are also currently serving time on similar charges. One activist, Pham Van Diep, was sentenced to nine years in prison for spreading false information that defamed the Communist Party and the Vietnamese government. The Vietnam News Agency reported that he also shared fake news about government policies, leading to misunderstandings among Facebook users and residents. The posts were published between April 2014 and June 2019, and he was sentenced to 21 months in prison in Laos for sharing anti-Vietnamese literature there in 2016. Diep is the third person to be imprisoned this month, following a music teacher who was sentenced to 11 years on Nov. 15 for similar anti-state posts on Facebook, and a 38-year-old man who was jailed for streaming 33 live video sessions that aimed to incite protests during national holidays, according to a court. In late last month, a 54-year-old architect was imprisoned for a year for similar allegations of anti-government posts on Facebook. Facebook is widely used in Vietnam as the primary platform for both e-commerce and political dissent. It was reported in May that there was a significant increase in the amount of content restricted in Vietnam compared to the last half of 2018. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on Hanoi to stop cracking down on an independent publisher and criticized restrictions on freedom of speech that result in individuals being arrested and imprisoned for expressing their views. The groups stated that this crackdown has intensified the atmosphere of fear in Vietnam.