This article was originally published in English on The Vietnamese.
Following the Formosa disaster in 2016, the Vietnamese government learned an important lesson: social media is not merely a place for people to chat but a genuine public, political space. [1]
During that year, citizens utilized Facebook to connect, organize protests, disseminate information outside the state-controlled press, and generate enough collective pressure to force concessions from the authorities.
Since then, authorities have increasingly fined individuals for Facebook comments, summoned them over remarks about leaders, or prosecuted them for online posts. While most of these statements lacked any connection to violence, terrorism, or plots to overthrow the government, the state reacted with disproportionate severity to seemingly harmless cases.
To understand this strong reaction, one must recognize a fundamental reality. A regime does not survive solely through the police, the military, or prisons; it endures because a sufficient number of people still believe its authority is legitimate. This is a vulnerability the government understands perfectly well.
The necessity of a political ‘aura’
While a state certainly exists through the police, the military, prisons, and the law, no apparatus can maintain long-term stability through coercion alone. In political science, scholars understand this phenomenon through the concept of legitimacy.
A state does not merely need power; it also requires its citizens to believe that its use of power is reasonable, natural, and justified. Power that wishes to endure must possess a certain “aura” surrounding it.
In democracies, elections partly renew legitimacy. Because governments can lose votes and be replaced, the system constantly refreshes its legality through built-in mechanisms.
However, in Việt Nam, elections play almost no decisive role in determining political power. Hence, legitimacy must be sustained through alternative sources: economic growth, social stability, nationalism, governing capacity, and especially the sense that society broadly still agrees with the party’s leadership. [2]
Hence, protecting the “aura” of authority becomes a matter of survival for the ruling regime.
What the state fears most is not open confrontation
Following the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party in 2016, the Vietnamese government deliberately began tightening control over online spaces.
A study by the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute titled “What Drives Vietnam’s Tightened Public Sphere?” argues that this shift was driven by conservative factions within the party seeking to strengthen ideological control and prevent “self-evolution” and “self-transformation.” [3]
These revealing concepts highlight a very specific governmental fear: the greatest danger is not always open opposition, but rather a gradual shift in social consciousness.
The government can easily disperse a protest or dismantle an opposition organization. However, a populace that increasingly questions the party’s leadership, doubts the system, or no longer views the power structure as “natural” represents a nightmare for the ruling class.
Power relies on society’s belief in its legitimacy rather than on violence alone, and the Internet serves as the exact catalyst capable of altering that belief.
Before the advent of social media, the state maintained an almost complete monopoly over the public sphere. The government single-handedly determined permissible speech, defined official information, and set the boundaries of acceptable debate.
Social media shattered this dynamic. For the first time, citizens could independently create narratives, spread information, and shape public opinion outside the official press system. For the authorities, the true danger lies not in a single post, but in social media’s ability to show dissatisfied individuals that they are not alone.
A single dissatisfied citizen is not frightening, but millions recognizing one another is an entirely different situation. The 2016 Formosa disaster was a rare moment when the state saw this reality clearly; as the ISEAS study argues, it marked a turning point that forced the Vietnamese government to recognize the immense political power of the Internet.
The psychology of speech control
If the state’s objective were merely to address “violations,” it would not need to react so harshly to trivial remarks.
The psychological effect is the most important. No state possesses the capacity to control every statement made by tens of millions of people, but it does not need to. By executing a handful of highly visible punishments, the state creates a pervasive sense of risk throughout society, prompting individuals to conclude: “Maybe it is safer to stay silent.”
This is the exact moment external censorship transforms into internal self-censorship. Citizens begin voluntarily avoiding sensitive topics, deleting their posts, utilizing vague language, or choosing complete silence without ever facing direct punishment.
The ISEAS study describes the ultimate result of this process as “an increasingly compliant and fearful cyberspace.” This reveals the deepest objective behind controlling speech: not to arrest everyone, but to condition society to fall silent before being told to do so.
Legal ambiguity heavily reinforces this mechanism. If the laws were excessively clear, citizens would know precisely where the boundaries lie. However, when legal concepts such as “causing negative impacts,” “distortion,” “abusing democratic freedoms,” or “false information” are open to broad interpretation, citizens proactively retreat further than necessary to avoid risk.
While many people never get arrested, the vast majority choose to stay silent. This result may be the most important outcome of all for a state that seeks to preserve its legitimacy.
Thúc Kháng wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on May 15, 2026. Đàm Vĩnh Hằng translated it into English for The Vietnamese Magazine.
- Nguyen, K. G., & Luong, D. N. A. (2023, June 19). What drives Vietnam’s tightened public sphere? ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. https://www.iseas.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/ISEAS_Perspective_2023_47.pdf
- Thúc Kháng. (2026, March 25). Voter Turnout in Việt Nam: A Measure of Legitimacy and State Capacity. The Vietnamese Magazine. https://thevietnamese.org/2026/03/voter-turnout-in-viet-nam-a-measure-of-legitimacy-and-state-capacity/
- See [1]