Vietnam retools its propaganda strategy for the social media age

Vietnam’s attempts to change its social media approach are complicated by tight controls and the public’s low trust in government messages

Until recently, Vietnam’s media control consisted of three tactics: blocking and removing “inappropriate content” critical of the government; monitoring social media; and the systematic prosecution of online dissenters, which has intensified in recent months.

However, control alone has proved unable to win over the public. During the Covid-19 pandemic, several “media crises with serious social consequences” occurred, such as a mass exodus of migrant workers from Ho Chi Minh City in September 2021 in defiance of the lockdown. This prompted the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) to conclude that in some areas, government communications were “not convincing enough” and “must change from the [old way of] one-sided propaganda to multidimensional interaction”.

The new concept was formally crystallised in a book published in September by Nguyen Van Thanh, a three-star police general and senior Communist ideologue, on safeguarding “state information security” by reaching out to the public. This was a sign that the conservative faction in the CPV had finally accepted the new way of “managing media crises”.

In February, the CPV announced a plan to leverage the power of social media for a new method of policy communication. Designed to seize the initiative from private social media influencers, Directive 7 of the Prime Minister’s Office prompted all government agencies to do three things. First, strengthening public communications on digital platforms by promoting official news while using digital technology to monitor and assess media trends for early identification of public relations crises, which need reactions from the state. Second, combating fake news, toxic news and opinions against the CPV and the state. Third, establishing professionally trained teams for the delivery of “positive news” and correct information to the public and manage media crises in cyberspace.

In March, the then-chairman of parliament Vuong Dinh Hue publicly admired “private live-streaming shows on TikTok and YouTube, with hundreds of thousands of viewers each time” and urged the government to organise similar media events for legal debates. In June, Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung promised to help the new operation with “capacity building and technical training”, so the interactive sessions with the participation of policy experts and influencers could attract a mass audience. Extra funding was planned for this recruitment.

The implementation of this new plan is, however, hindered by very tight media control, the plan’s lack of compatibility with social media, and the public’s low trust in the government’s messages.

First, responsiveness and interactivity, inherent to social media, are not compatible with current Vietnamese media rules limiting news sharing and the posting of alternative opinions. The government’s current practice of censoring live comments not only defeats the whole purpose of having an interactive broadcast but would also require full compliance by Big Tech platforms like YouTube and Facebook. This is despite Facebook’s declared mission statement of “giving people the power to build community” and YouTube’s policy of highlighting individual voices. As of today, they have reluctantly removed certain amounts of online material at the Vietnamese state’s request but also pushed back against pressure from the authorities to keep the platforms available to millions of users in Vietnam and abroad.

Second, Vietnamese media professionals still do not have the freedom to select topics for their publications and respond spontaneously to the public. The Press Law (2016) tightly regulates the scope of topics classified as sensitive. Punishable offences are vaguely defined to include many new areas of reporting which are not tightly regulated, such as broadcasting material that causes “public confusion” or publishing news undermining “national, religious and ethnic unity” (Article 9).

The Cybersecurity Law (2018) further impedes the freedom of speech of media professionals, even on their private social media accounts. In addition, the collective punishment for editorial errors and misquoting a leader is severe, exemplified by the suspension of three newspapers between 2018 and 2023 for three months each, with the journalists’ income forfeited.

This fear of being punished makes political news delivery in Vietnam very scripted, often to the point of reading official announcements verbatim on national television. Live-streaming about social issues in the provinces is less scrutinised, but self-censorship is the norm. As a state journalist noted at a state broadcasting festival in Hanoi in July, any live broadcast team still must be “careful” when dealing with “sensitive but hugely popular topics” to avoid “inflaming unnecessary conflicts and misunderstanding”.

Third, state media personnel would have a challenging time establishing themselves and winning back the public’s trust from private influencers who have earned popularity, thanks to their engagement with hundreds of thousands of loyal followers over the years. A large section of Vietnamese has already turned to private YouTubers and Facebook influencers for alternative news and analysis because of their low trust in state media.

Five years ago, then-prime minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc acknowledged the need for state media to regain public trust, as reported by a party-owned magazine.

Given the above, accepting the failure of the old, top-down propaganda approach is a step in the right direction but for its embrace of social media to be effective, the government needs to make substantive and meaningful change to Vietnam’s strict media regulations, which are designed to control rather than engage. Only by reducing that tight grip and letting media personnel own the initiative can the government genuinely engage with the public and exploit social media platforms to better effect.

By Nguyen Thanh Giang – The South China Morning Post – August 18, 2024