At the regular press conference for the second quarter of 2026 of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on July 15, Mr. Hoang Hai Long - Deputy Director of the Publishing, Printing and Issuing Department answered questions about the process of controlling publication content after a number of controversial cases in the past.
Mr. Long affirmed that the current control is carried out in accordance with the provisions of the Publishing Law. In which, the Director of the Publishing House is responsible for the content of publications issued by his unit.
Deputy Director of the Publishing, Printing and Issuing Department of Information, each year Vietnam has about 50,000 book titles published with about 350 million copies, while the force working in publishing management at the Publishing, Printing and Issuing Department is very limited.
Therefore, after publications are submitted for circulation, the Department cannot read all approximately 50,000 titles. The selection for reading is made based on registration from the beginning of the year, prioritizing titles related to politics, history, security, defense, religion and territory.
Therefore, this inspection is probabilistic," Mr. Long said.
The Deputy Director of the Publishing, Printing and Issuing Department emphasized that circulation is not a licensing stage before books are published.
Keeping records is a state management activity, not the stage of reading to accept or license before books are published. The purpose of keeping records is to detect violations to serve handling if any. The responsibility for controlling the content before books reach the public belongs to the publisher," Mr. Hoang Hai Long affirmed.
According to him, right from the draft exploitation stage, the publishing house must consider the content. When issuing the publishing decision, the publishing house director must be responsible for his decision and the release of the book to the market.
Regarding controversial publications in the past, Mr. Hoang Hai Long said that when errors were detected, the Department coordinated with functional agencies to handle, recall and supervise the publisher to destroy all recalled books, including books collected from publishing units and from readers.
He also noted that many readers, especially young people, have proactively brought books to the Publishing, Printing and Distribution Department to submit them.
This is a very commendable action, showing the responsibility of readers when not keeping or copying books with errors but proactively coordinating with state management agencies," he said.
Regarding information about the "book appraisal council" appearing on social networks, Mr. Hoang Hai Long affirmed: "There is currently no concept of'Appraisal Council'. We use the "reading group" model, which has been maintained for many years".
Accordingly, the reading group includes experts and experienced officials in the field of publishing and related fields, who have the role of advising state management agencies in considering the next steps of handling publications selected for reading.
