Vietnam’s Quest for Online Positivity Could Breed Negativity

Vietnam’s online playbook is shifting from deleting to diluting. After years of chasing “toxic” posts, authorities now aim to engineer “positive content” at scale – feel-good narratives designed to crowd out criticism.

Vietnam is moving to formalise a governance framework on key opinion leaders (KOLs). In June, it passed the Amended Advertising Law requiring influencers to label paid posts and verify product claims. In mid-August, it convened the first national influencer summit, co-organised by the Ministry of Public Security’s cyber unit and the National Cybersecurity Association. Nearly 300 KOLs – most of them organically grown in lifestyle, fashion, food, or entertainment, not politics – turned up alongside officials, brands, and platforms. The goal was to pull this commercially independent class into an official lane through a Digital Trust Alliance and an Influencer Trust programme that rates credibility, enforces advertising and tax rules, and ties visibility to “responsible influence”.

Several pillars anchor the governance framework – for example, consumer protection, stricter accountability standards, tax compliance, and platform cooperation – but the cornerstone is unmistakable: enlisting KOLs to flood the infosphere with “positive, humane values”. With this approach, KOLs are no longer just entertainers but instruments of state messaging.

The summit was the latest step in a years-long effort to institutionalise “positivity” across the information sphere. In state media, editors have been steered towards “spreading positive information”. In 2021, Vietnam rolled out its national social media code of conduct, urging ordinary users to share “positive, truthful” stories about the country while discouraging posts deemed harmful to state interests. A recent spate of alleged scandals – stealth marketing, bogus health claims, shock-jock stunts, and even arrests over deceptive health products –  gave officials the consumer-protection pretext to rein in independent influencers.

On paper, a government directive instructed ministries to study the experiences of “China, the US and other countries” when drafting KOL rules, though it did not specify what elements should be emulated. Within Vietnam’s emerging framework, some EU-style elements appear, mainly at the commercial edge: rules on ad disclosure, false-claim liability, tax compliance, and platform responsibility. But those are secondary. The core resembles China’s model: security and information regulators sitting at the centre. “Trusted Influencer” lists elevate approved creators, while a new rating programme will issue certificates for transparency, compliance, and positivity, paired with a “responsible influence” charter. Together, these tools nudge KOLs to amplify government-sanctioned narratives and curb dissent.

Flooding the information sphere with manufactured feel-good narratives signals insecurity, not confidence.

In trying to rope influencers into sanitising cyberspace on a Chinese model, Vietnam is forcing two mismatched pegs into a square hole. First, influencers work because audiences trust their authenticity and independence; once they are seen as scripted, credibility evaporates. More fundamentally, unlike Beijing, which can lean on homegrown platforms like WeChat, Weibo, and Douyin to play up positive content, Hanoi must bargain with Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, whose business models depend on engagement, not uplift.

Dangling access to a market of nearly 100 million people, Hanoi has used that leverage to pressure those major foreign platforms into removing content at its behest. Officials boast of compliance rates above 90 per cent, touting them as proof they can keep Big Tech in line. Having erased what it dislikes, Vietnam now seems to believe the same leverage can compel platforms to amplify what it favours. But deletion is reactive and cheap; being ordered to amplify is another matter. Engagement-driven algorithms boost posts that spark outrage and emotional reaction, because that is what keeps users scrolling.

Facebook once adjusted its News Feed to promote posts from friends and family to improve users’ “well-being”. But the algorithm still prioritised “angry” reactions because they drove the most engagement. Flooding feeds with mandated positivity cuts against that grain. Unless platforms heavily subsidise positivity, naturally, such content is quietly sidelined. At best, Vietnam can expect token compliance – slow-rolled mandates and cosmetic boosts. At worst, platforms will drag their feet or resist outright.

Forced positivity is also likely to backfire, with the costs stacking up: local officials start covering up bad news to keep the “all is well” line, leaving higher-level decision-makers blind to festering problems. Suppressed talk does not vanish; it migrates to private chats, encrypted groups, or overseas platforms where speculation fills the vacuum and spins out of control. And heavy-handed positivity does not just ring hollow at home; abroad, it reads as propaganda, widening the credibility gap and damaging soft power when the curated story collides with visible reality.

Hanoi frames its KOL drive as consumer protection and a way to reduce toxicity in the cybersphere. However, past experience suggests that what counts as “public interest” is ultimately defined through a security and propaganda lens. In past crackdowns on “toxic content”, the bulk of what disappeared was political criticism inconvenient to the Party or its leaders. Now, with the same apparatus defining what qualifies as positive, the obvious question is: positive for whom?

The irony is that Hanoi already has an asset it could build on: A recent ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute regional survey found Vietnamese youth among the most trusting of their political system and the most optimistic about the country’s economic future. Instead of conscripting influencers, the smarter play is to amplify that optimism – especially among social media–savvy youth – through unlikely but credible messengers: the leaders themselves, who can project the message directly through their own digital engagement. Even in authoritarian settings, leaders have shown they can win over younger publics once they lean into social media with a dose of relatability. Vietnam’s leaders are edging into that space too, pairing pragmatism with a digitally fluent style that feels authentic. 

Positive vibes do not come from algorithmic cheerleading, but from real gains in daily life and leaders who embody that optimism. Flooding the information sphere with manufactured feel-good narratives signals insecurity, not confidence.

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