Spiderum: How a Youth Platform was Branded ‘Reactionary’ in Việt Nam

For a decade, the popular youth-oriented media platform Spiderum has walked a tightrope. Many observers have long assumed that the company would inevitably face political and legal backlash, and the recent Chuyện với Thanh affair may well be its first serious misstep. 

During their university years, many students recognized Spiderum as an anomaly. The platform distinguished itself through an occasional willingness to publish on sensitive topics that few other outlets in Việt Nam would dare touch. Students often joked about how such a site could exist and thrive within Việt Nam without being “sờ gáy” or “tapped on the shoulder” by the authorities. 

With the emergence of the Chuyện với Thanh case, the answer to that question has seemingly arrived.

Specifically Targeting Spiderum

The controversy originated in early 2026 when Nguyễn Thành Nam, co-founder and former CEO of FPT Group, published Chuyện với Thanh (Story with Thanh). [1] The book adopted an experimental narrative voice to portray Hồ Chí Minh, drawing heavily from William J. Duiker’s renowned biography, Ho Chi Minh: A Life, while notably diverging in its framing and interpretation.

Released by the Writers’ Association Publishing House in late April 2026, the book enjoyed roughly two quiet months of circulation among a considerable readership. However, by early June, it became the target of coordinated criticism for allegedly insulting a national leader and was subsequently ordered to be withdrawn and destroyed. 

The situation escalated on July 7, when police announced that Nguyễn Thành Nam had been formally charged and placed in pre-trial detention for “anti-state propaganda,” stemming from passages deemed to have “offended President Hồ Chí Minh.”

On July 8, Facebook user Hoàng Dũng posted a list of “individuals involved” with the publication, drawing over 20,000 interactions in a single day. [2]

The list implicated dozens of figures, including Nguyễn Thúy Hằng, director of the Writers’ Association Publishing House; Nguyễn Quang Thiều, chairman of the Việt Nam Writers’ Association; and Lê Quốc Minh, editor-in-chief of Nhân Dân, a state-owned publication that had previously run two favorable reviews of the book. Hardline voices, such as Phan Trung Can, repeatedly urged authorities to “take action” against everyone involved. [3]

When looking at the entire chain of editing, licensing, publication, and media endorsement, Spiderum was neither the sole actor nor the most consequential. Yet, among the dozens of organizations involved in bringing Story with Thanh to the public, the first name listed alongside Nguyễn Thành Nam in the prosecution decision was Trần Việt Anh, CEO of Spiderum. [4] His platform had promoted the book through video interviews with the author.

On the evening of July 7, national broadcaster VTV aired a self-incriminating statement from Trần Việt Anh. He confessed to developing the podcast with the perverse goal of producing highly viewable content to maximize economic returns, admitting that he leveraged influential figures like Nguyễn Thành Nam to attract larger audiences.

Ultimately, this case hinges on the charge of “anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the Criminal Code, a statute widely regarded as a modern form of lèse-majesté [5]. For decades, both Vietnamese intellectuals and the international community have consistently criticized this provision as a severe violation of fundamental rights.

Crossing the Party Line

Founded in Việt Nam in 2016 by Trần Việt Anh, a student returning from Finland, Spiderum initially emerged as a writing-focused social platform for young people, akin to Substack or Yahoo! 360. [6] Operating legally under social network license No. 341/GP-TTTT, issued by the Ministry of Information and Communications on June 27, 2016, it has since evolved into a sprawling content ecosystem across YouTube, Facebook, Spotify, and TikTok.

According to Spiderum’s own figures, this ecosystem reaches approximately 10 million young Vietnamese between the ages of 18 and 35. The main website draws around 2 million monthly views, while its Facebook page has around 10 million impressions and its YouTube channel has accumulated about 100 million. 

Content is entirely user-driven; after verifying an account, individuals can publish directly. The Spiderum team often selects and adapts notable pieces into YouTube videos, allowing original authors to earn royalties.

While the platform covers a wide array of topics—including psychology, philosophy, education, and lifestyle—it has also built an identity through podcasts and expert interviews that critique shortcomings in the education system and emphasize critical thinking in a changing society. [7]

However, Spiderum does not restrict itself to self-improvement. Many articles venture into highly sensitive territories regarding history, war, the state, and Vietnamese society.

For instance, some writers subtly diverge from official state language by using the term “Vietnam War” instead of “the Resistance War against America.” [8] 

Other pieces have offered alternative perspectives on April 30, 1975, explaining why Sài Gòn residents fled advancing North Vietnamese forces or called for national reconciliation. [9] [10] Some articles even praise the historical intentionality of Sài Gòn’s pre-1975 street-naming system. [11]

Furthermore, Spiderum has published content criticizing Tifosi, a pro-government outlet, and extreme nationalism in Việt Nam. [12]

One such article was adapted into a YouTube video titled “The Nature of the Vietnam War,” which garnered over 180,000 views. The screenshot is attached below. [13]

For many young readers, Spiderum represents a rare space of intellectual plurality in Việt Nam; for others, this plurality is deemed “reactionary.”

This inherent contradiction escalated when an excerpt from the 2026 nonfiction technology book Code và Cát: Những quyền lực công nghệ xoay chuyển thế giới (Code and Sand: The Technological Powers that are Changing the World) was featured in the 2026 high school graduation Literature exam. 

Published by Spiderum and authored by Phan Tuấn (under the pen name Huskywannafly), the book itself was not inherently sensitive. However, his previous writings were.

As one of Spiderum’s most prominent contributors, Phan Tuấn’s inclusion in a national exam prompted immediate scrutiny of his past work and, by extension, the content Spiderum amplifies. In 2022, he published an article on Spiderum titled “History in Việt Nam Is Being Taught Like a Religion.” Although the written text was removed from the platform by early June 2026, a podcast version remains on Spotify. [14]

In the piece, Tuấn argued that history is taught like the Bible, writing: 

“If a reader thinks the Bible is problematic, the problem lies with the reader. The teaching of history in Việt Nam works the same way. History is being used more as a tool than anything else. Broadly speaking, it serves two purposes, and these two nationalistic, doctrinal purposes reinforce one another. First, history should help readers see the greatness of the Vietnamese nation; second, the Party and the state should appear as the forces leading and sustaining that greatness.”

Highlighting a perceived threat, a Threads comment by the account saltedlemonicecream39, which received 4,300 likes, stated, “…if Spiderum’s content shows up on the national high school exam, then there really is ‘giặc ở sau lưng nhà vua,’” using a metaphor that suggests an internal enemy is lurking within the state’s own cultural or educational space.

The “Reddening” of Spiderum

In early 2026, writer and translator Nguyễn Tuấn Linh deleted all of his previously published pieces from the platform. In a post on his personal Facebook account, he explained that Spiderum was no longer suitable for him because it had “hóa đỏ” (turned red)—a phrase indicating an alignment with official, state-approved political language. [15] 

According to Linh, this increasing reddening is the result of a deliberate directional shift chosen by Spiderum’s director, Trần Việt Anh, who has opted to align with the authorities rather than confront them.

This editorial pivot began in 2024 following the death of General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng—a highly sensitive period marked by attacks on artists who allegedly showed insufficient grief. 

Simultaneously, a separate but overlapping crackdown targeted Fulbright University Vietnam, which pro-government commentators accused of fostering a “color revolution” and framing the institution as a Western-influenced space that encouraged dissent. Individual citizens were also caught in the crossfire; notably, high-school student Chu Ngọc Quang Vinh was harshly targeted for expressing disappointment with the political system. [16] [17]

Following this period, Spiderum’s content increasingly focused on Party leaders and figures. It published articles highlighting former General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng and emphasizing the international media’s praise for him. [18] 

While political researchers often describe the “burning furnace” anti-corruption campaign as a complex mix of Party cleansing, purges, and internal power struggles, Spiderum mainly portrayed Nguyễn Phú Trọng as a resolute leader who successfully strengthened public trust in the Party. [19] [20]

By 2025, the platform continued along a trajectory of greater state capture. It released content praising international communist leaders and focusing on historical figures tied to the Communist Party of Vietnam, such as Võ Nguyên Giáp, Lê Đức Thọ, and Hồ Chí Minh, along with material praising international communist leaders. [21] [22] [23] [24]

Furthermore, rather than adapting articles that used the objective term “Vietnam War,” Spiderum adopted censorship-induced phrasing like “the resistance war against America” and “the liberation of Sài Gòn.” [25] [26]

Under most of its articles on Vietnamese history and politics, Spiderum routinely attached book-promotion sections. Recently, the platform used these sections to promote a video series centered on Story with Thanh, produced by director Trần Việt Anh in collaboration with Nguyễn Thành Nam.

Although the series had been available on Spiderum’s YouTube channel since February 2025, it initially drew little attention. It was only after the controversy over the withdrawal of Story with Thanh erupted that online users went back to revisit the content.

***

Spiderum’s homepage is currently in maintenance mode, a status that may signal a longer-term shutdown for the youth writing platform. 

As translator Nguyễn Tuấn Linh observed, Spiderum was originally founded with a purpose that genuinely benefited the intellectual life of young Vietnamese people; the intense scrutiny and ultimate fate it met are, in his words, a matter worth reflecting on. [27] 

Perhaps the detention of Trần Việt Anh is more than a personal blow. It sends a chilling message to Việt Nam’s entire youth-content ecosystem that walking a legal and political tightrope will not guarantee the safety of a platform or its voices.

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Thúc Kháng wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on July 11, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine has the copyrights to the English translation.