Hanoi school forbids swearing on Facebook TUOI TRE News A screenshot displays a notice on the website of Luong The Vinh High School, located in Hanoi, which bans its students from swearing and bad-mouthing others on Facebook. Photo: Tuoi Tre Facebook is becoming increasingly popular with young Vietnamese, but troubling for school administrators. In that fashion, a Hanoi high school has banned its students from using swear words, even in abbreviated forms, and bad-mouthing other people on the social networking site. A notice posted Tuesday on the official website of Luong The Vinh High School says that its students are not allowed to swear or write the bad words in short forms like dm, vcl, vl, bts(extremely obscene abbreviations related to the C- and F-words in Vietnamese) on their Facebook pages. Luong The Vinh students are required absolutely not to “use Facebook to speak ill of anybody,” according to the notice. They will be held accountable for liking “a Facebook status that has bad content,” it says. “All this is simply advice, not school rules,” Van Nhu Cuong, the school’s principal, explained to Tuoi Tre. Cuong decided to publish the notice following many scandals related to the abuse of the social networking site, with the latest incident involving a middle school student being suspended for insulting her teachers on Facebook, the educator said. Ly Tu Trong Middle School, located in the central province of Quang Nam, imposed a one-year suspensionon Nguyen Thanh V., a 14-year-old 8th-grader, earlier this month for posting a Facebook status that her principal said insulted educators and distorted Vietnamese history. It then lifted the penalty and let the student return to school on Wednesday after many people including educators protested that the school was too strict with V. Principal Cuong complained that vulgar language is appearing at an alarming rate on Facebook at the moment. “Many students now tend to easily vent their anger via all kinds of cursing on Facebook whenever they get into a minor conflict with their parents,” he said. “By this notice we want to prevent our students from swearing there and in real life.” These don’ts will become official regulations of the school in the future, Cuong said, adding that expulsion would be the highest punishment for violators. Luong The Vinh once expelled two students for using rude language on Facebook, Cuong revealed. “I don’t want to mention it again,” he said, “but I can say that their own parents got really shocked at how offensive the students’ Facebook posts were.” Here is a Tuoitrenews translation of the notice: FACEBOOK TABOOS (For students at Luong The Vinh High School only)  1. Do not swear or be foul-mouthed, even in short forms like dm, vcl, vl, bts, etc. Use pure and clear Vietnamese. 2. Do not use Facebook to speak ill of anybody. 3. Only like a status after you have read it carefully. If you like a Facebook status that has bad content, you will be held accountable. So, you should protest or express your viewpoint on those statuses that have bad or unhealthy content. 4. Never let your friends misunderstand your Facebook status. For that reason, write your Facebook status clearly. Notes: - Every coin has two sides. Facebook is a sharing site where you can share happiness and trouble. However, how to make your sharing right depends on your own knowledge and intelligence. - Thus, Facebook users should always think twice before sharing to prove their knowledge and intelligence. - Facebook is also a place where you show your own education level so you should think carefully before liking and commenting on anything there, or writing a status that expresses your state of mind. - Facebook is not a journal so anything private should not be uploaded there. - When I read your Facebook page, I can certainly tell who you are!