Thúc Kháng wrote this article in Vietnamese, published in Luat Khoa Magazine on June 25, 2025. Đàm Vĩnh Hằng translated it into English for The Vietnamese Magazine.

In the cacophony of social media, a familiar line is often deployed as a weapon. Every time someone is praised but later exposed as having once criticized the government—or worse, as a descendant of a former South Vietnamese official—the online crowd chants in unison: “I truly love the village, but since it sided with the French, I must hate it.”