TikTok yet to fully clarify its violations in Vietnam

Relevant agencies of Vietnam began conducting a comprehensive inspection of TikTok’s operations in Vietnam in May 2023 following its alleged violations of the law. The results of the inspection were originally scheduled to be announced in July, but later postponed to early August.

So far, TikTok has not finished making full explanation of its violations as required, so relevant agencies have not been able to announce the results of the inspection as planned, said Le Quang Tu Do, head of the Authority of Broadcasting, Television and Electronic Information, under the Ministry of Information and Communications.

Prior to the inspection, the Ministry of Information and Communications announced six violations TikTok had committed in Vietnam. Accordingly, this social media platform had caused serious consequences, such as spreading fake news and causing social instability as well as economic losses.

The authority held that TiKTok had not taken effective measures to control the spread of anti-government information and fake news, as well as harmful content for children.

The platform had used automatic distribution algorithms in order to create trends and distribute content for views, thereby adversely affecting the community and young people. 

With regard to its e-commerce service, the platform had not adopted effective measures to prevent the trading and marketing of fake and imitation goods, aphrodisiacs, and supplementary of unknown origin.

Besides, this social network had not managed its idols’ activities, letting them to produce crappy and uncultured contents. It had not adopted effective management measures for a number of users who arbitrarily use private and personal images of others to spread fake news, or to defame or offend others.

Through the inspection, Do said the authority will comprehensively assess the impact TikTok on the community, especially young people, and at the same time, improve the efficiency of scanning tools for images and videos.

Relevant agencies will make specific assessments after the comprehensive inspection. All cross-border platforms that do not comply with the law will not be welcomed in Vietnam, said Do.

Nguyen Lam Thanh, representative of TikTok Vietnam, previously said that the platform would refresh its Community Standards in an effort to ensure TikTok is a safe, inclusive, and welcoming environment for all users, along with investing further in censorship technology.

TiKTok is looking forward to receiving the delegation as it will be a great opportunity for the management of the platform to listen to suggestions and operate better in the future, said the representative.

TikTok, along with its Chinese counterpart Douyin, is a short-form video hosting service owned by Chinese company ByteDance.