Comprehensive inspection of TikTok in Vietnam

The information was just announced by Mr. Le Quang Tu Do - Director of the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information (Ministry of Information and Communications) on the evening of April 3.

The Ministry of Information and Communications will conduct a comprehensive inspection of TikTok from early May.

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, recently, on the social network TikTok, there has been a lot of bad, toxic, offensive content, false information, superstition... Given the above situation, the Ministry of Information and Communications will conduct a comprehensive inspection of the social network platform TikTok.

The inspection is expected to begin in May, to ensure the platform’s compliance with the law during its operations and business in Vietnam. If violations are detected, the Ministry of Information and Communications will take strict action; at the same time, it will coordinate with relevant agencies to apply many strong and drastic solutions.

"TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube are all cross-border social networking platforms. They have community standards that apply globally. However, when entering Vietnam, these platforms must comply with Vietnamese law, and that law includes not only content management but also tax, payment, and advertising obligations... to synthesize and synchronize solutions so that they can comply with good Vietnamese regulations," Mr. Tu Do emphasized.

TikTok officially launched in Vietnam in 2019, after a year of testing. In just a few years, TikTok has exploded with nearly 50 million users. Vietnam currently ranks 6th among the 10 countries with the most TikTok users in the world.

TikTok recommends content to viewers using its own algorithm. If harmful content and false information are not blocked in time, they will continuously appear on users' pages.

Previously, in November 2022, Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung said that the problem of false advertising appeared frequently on cross-border platforms. The Ministry will inspect cross-border platforms, including TikTok, regarding advertising issues.

TikTok is a famous Chinese social network, using music videos released by the news app Jinri Toutiao founded in 2016 in China. This social network has a fairly simple way of operating, showing short videos from a few seconds to 15 seconds. This is a popular application. However, recently, the governments of some countries have been banning this application due to concerns about revealing user information data.