Google Reportedly Weighs Large Data Center in Vietnam

FILE PHOTO: The logo for Google is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in Manhattan, New York City, US, November 17, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The logo for Google is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in Manhattan, New York City, US, November 17, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo
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Google Reportedly Weighs Large Data Center in Vietnam

FILE PHOTO: The logo for Google is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in Manhattan, New York City, US, November 17, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The logo for Google is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in Manhattan, New York City, US, November 17, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo

Alphabet's Google is considering building a large data center in Vietnam, a person briefed on the plans said, in what would be the first such investment by a big US technology company in the Southeast Asian nation.
Google is weighing setting up a "hyperscale" data center close to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's southern economic hub, the source said, declining to be named because the information is not public.
The investment, the size of which the source did not specify, would be a shot in the arm for Vietnam which has so far failed to attract major overseas capital in data centers due to its patchy infrastructure, with large tech companies preferring to house their centers in rival nations in the region.
According to Reuters, it was not clear how quickly Google will reach a decision on an investment but the source said internal talks are on and the data center could be ready in 2027.
A spokesperson for Google declined to comment about the data center plan.
Hyperscale centers are the largest in the industry, with power consumption usually similar to that of a big city.
A hyperscale data center with power consumption capacity of 50 megawatts (MW) could cost between $300 million and $650 million, according to estimates based on data published by real estate consultant Jones Lang LaSalle in a report this year on data centers in Vietnam.
Google's move was motivated by the large number of its domestic and foreign cloud services clients in Vietnam and the country's expanding digital economy, the source said, noting the Southeast Asian nation was one of the fastest-growing markets for YouTube, Google's popular online video sharing platform.
Currently the top data center operators in Vietnam, based on computing space, are industrial investment firm IDC Becamex and telecommunications company VNPT, both Vietnamese state-owned enterprises, according to an internal market report by an industrial park in Vietnam seen by Reuters.
The Nikkei reported in May that Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba was considering building a data center in Vietnam. Alibaba did not reply to a request for comment.



TikTok Must Face Lawsuit over 10-year-old Girl's Death, US Court Rules

A view shows the office of TikTok after the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would give TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to divest the US assets of the short-video app or face a ban, in Culver City, California, March 13, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake
A view shows the office of TikTok after the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would give TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to divest the US assets of the short-video app or face a ban, in Culver City, California, March 13, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake
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TikTok Must Face Lawsuit over 10-year-old Girl's Death, US Court Rules

A view shows the office of TikTok after the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would give TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to divest the US assets of the short-video app or face a ban, in Culver City, California, March 13, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake
A view shows the office of TikTok after the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would give TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to divest the US assets of the short-video app or face a ban, in Culver City, California, March 13, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake

A US appeals court has revived a lawsuit against TikTok by the mother of a 10-year-old girl who died after taking part in a viral "blackout challenge" in which users of the social media platform were dared to choke themselves until they passed out, Reuters reported.

While a federal law typically shields internet companies from lawsuits over content posted by users, the Philadelphia-based 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled the law does not bar Nylah Anderson's mother from pursuing claims that TikTok's algorithm recommended the challenge to her daughter.

US Circuit Judge Patty Shwartz, writing for the three-judge panel, said that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 only immunizes information provided by third parties and not recommendations TikTok itself made via an algorithm underlying its platform.

She acknowledged the holding was a departure from past court rulings by her court and others holding that Section 230 immunizes an online platform from liability for failing to prevent users from transmitting harmful messages to others.

But she said that reasoning no longer held after a US Supreme Court ruling in July on whether state laws designed to restrict the power of social media platforms to curb content they deem objectionable violate their free speech rights.

In those cases, the Supreme Court held a platform's algorithm reflects "editorial judgments" about "compiling the third-party speech it wants in the way it wants." Shwartz said under that logic, content curation using algorithms is speech by the company itself, which is not protected by Section 230.

"TikTok makes choices about the content recommended and promoted to specific users, and by doing so, is engaged in its own first-party speech," she wrote.

TikTok did not respond to requests for comment.

Tuesday's ruling reversed a lower-court judge's decision dismissing on Section 230 grounds the case filed by Tawainna Anderson against TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance.

She sued after her daughter Nylah died in 2021 after attempting the blackout challenge using a purse strap hung in her mother's closet.

"Big Tech just lost its 'get-out-of-jail-free card,'" Jeffrey Goodman, the mother's lawyer, said in a statement.

U.S. Circuit Judge Paul Matey, in a opinion partially concurring with Tuesday's ruling, said TikTok in its "pursuit of profits above all other values" may choose to serve children content emphasizing "the basest tastes" and "lowest virtues."

"But it cannot claim immunity that Congress did not provide," he wrote.