Blackpink's, other celebrity Facebook fanpages in Vietnam restricted

An administrator of the Blackpink Vietnam FC, which has over 450,000 likes, said on Tuesday afternoon the page was being restricted and that members have moved to private groups instead. Several other fanpages with names of South Korean and Chinese artists, among others, also could not be found.

Numerous pages were seen changing their names, fearing that a "purge" on Facebook was ongoing. Administrators claimed that Facebook does not allow artists’ names in pages’ names, and the same goes for artists’ images on pages’ profile pictures.

Phung Lan Huong, an administrator of several fanpages in Vietnam about South Korean actors, said that some of the pages she manages had been locked since Tuesday afternoon without any clear reason.

"Facebook only notified that the pages could no longer post contents for violating community standards," she said, adding that a sudden lockdown without warning would negatively impact users’ community and administrators themselves. Bad actors can also take advantage of the situation to scam people, and major pages that had been dozens of years in the making may be lost forever, causing great losses, she said.

Mai Anh Phu, a Facebook marketing service provider, said Facebook's campaign came off as surprising and unpredictable as many other pages with celebrities' names remain. He said administrators of restricted pages can file complaints to regain their page management rights, though it is not guaranteed.

Facebook has yet to provide a comment on the matter.