As an indication of how online media are becoming ever more dominant in our world, consider two newspaper front pages (the ink-on-paper versions) on Wednesday, April 24.

Vice President Hamid Ansari has announced here that India plans to open a cultural centre in the Vietnamese capital this year to promote interchange of ideas and greater interaction between the people of the two nations. “We wish to bring together the exchange of ideas and culture, with a contemporary face, to our ancient bonds of friendship. To facilitate these ties and promote people-to people contacts, we plan to open the Indian cultural centre in Hanoi this year.”

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has appointed its first secretary-general from Vietnam, a one-party communist state and one of four ASEAN members in conflict with China over territory in the South China Sea. ASEAN has struggled over the past year to form a consensus on the issue and having a leader from Vietnam will keep the spotlight on the dispute.

The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi has deactivated its account on a popular Vietnamese website that's full of suspected pirated music and Hollywood movies, the State Department said Wednesday. The embassy had used its social media account with ZingMe to promote American values, including respect for intellectual property rights. But its presence had raised questions about digital piracy on the site and led to a review.

The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi has deactivated its account on a popular Vietnamese website that’s full of suspected pirated music and Hollywood movies, the State Department said Wednesday. The embassy had used its social media account with ZingMe to promote American values, including respect for intellectual property rights. But its presence had raised questions about digital piracy on the site and led to a review.

t’s a wildly popular website laden with unlicensed songs and Hollywood movies, a prime exhibit of the digital piracy that affects the music industry in Asia and eroding legitimate online sales around the world. But a few clicks inside the free-to-download bonanza that has pushed Vietnam’s Zing.vn into the globe’s top 550 websites reveals a surprising presence, the American government, which maintains a bustling social media account on the site.

The State Department said Wednesday it is reviewing a US Embassy's use of a wildly popular Vietnamese website laden with suspected pirated music and Hollywood movies to promote American values, including respect for intellectual property rights.

Washington is a vocal proponent of intellectual property rights in Vietnam as it is around the world, and a site like Zing would be shut down in the United States. But with space with for public diplomacy limited in Communist Vietnam, the American embassy uses its "Zingme" account to reach out to young people in Vietnam as it seeks to build closer ties with its former enemy.