The Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications will launch a comprehensive probe over TikTok's activities in Vietnam from May 15.

The inspection will last until the end of the month, Le Quang Tu Do, head of the ministry’s Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information, said at a regular press briefing of the ministry on Friday.

TikTok entered Vietnam in 2019 and has boomed since then, Do added.

The platform was initially used for entertainment. However, harmful content has been on the rise on TikTok since last year.

Vietnamese agencies had earlier pointed out six serious violations of TikTok.

In particular, the platform fails to effectively control content related to politics, content opposing the Vietnamese Party and State, fake news, harmful and even dangerous content for children.

TikTok also uses automated content distribution algorithms to create trends in a bid to spread content for views, even harmful and offensive content, which causes a negative impact on the community, especially the young.

Tiktok has no measures to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods and products with unknown origins.

It allows users to make donations to idols, causing many idols to produce inappropriate content to attract viewers.

Non-copyrighted content has been rampant on the short-form video platform without any effective prevention measures from TikTok. 

Furthermore, TikTok has no effective measures to prevent users from using others’ images to spread fake news or defame and insult others.

TikTok’s violations have resulted in serious consequences, such as paving the way for the spread of fake news, causing economic losses and social instability, encouraging the young to follow offensive trends, damaging the country’s cultural values, and facilitating illegal business activities.

The Ministry of Information and Communications will propose applying legal, economic, technical and diplomatic solutions to demand cross-border platforms, including TikTok, comply with Vietnam’s laws, Do said.

TikTok now has around 49.9 million Vietnamese users aged 18 and above. Vietnam ranks sixth among the 10 countries with the biggest numbers of TikTok users, the Ministry of Information and Communications reported, citing research company DataReportal.

The platform said it had removed 1.7 million videos on the Vietnamese government's request in the fourth quarter of last year.

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