Vietnam has found Chinese social media app TikTok guilty of violating the country’s laws on information security, child protection, and e-commerce.
The verdict was the result of the Ministry of Information and Communications’ inspection of TikTok’s operations in Vietnam since May 22, local media reported from the ministry’s meeting on October 5.
TikTok’s Singapore-based unit directly manages its services in Vietnam instead of the legal entities in the country, Le Quang Tu Do, head of the Ministry’s broadcasting and electronic information department, reportedly announced about the findings of the inspection.
“When establishing a legal entity in Vietnam, the company is not a figurehead and must bear real responsibilities,” media reports quoted him as saying.
TikTok Singapore stored illegal information on local Vietnamese servers, including fake news, violence-inciting news, and information harmful to children, according to the findings.
Its video-sharing platform was said to have no measures to protect children’s confidential information, while the content was not rated in accordance with child safety norms. In addition, TikTok reportedly allows children under 13 years old to open accounts, in violation of the laws.
A similar situation was found in the UK, which imposed a fine of 12.7 million British pound on the ByteDance subsidiary in April. TikTok was found with as many as 1.4 million British kids below 13 years of age on the platform collecting and using their personal data.
Vietnam has requested TikTok to remove all content that violates its rules and to ban accounts of kids under 13 years old, media reports said.
TikTok Singapore has also been requested to authorise its Vietnam-based entities to operate direct businesses in the country.
The ministry further concluded that TikTok’s online shopping unit, TikTok Shop, did not store seller and product information as ruled.
Do, the ministry official, reportedly added that TikTok Singapore has agreed with the findings and committed to coming up with a resolution within 30 days.
DealStreetAsia has reached out to TikTok for comments.
TikTok Shop has been banned in Indonesia, and the e-commerce platform has started to halt transactions in the country from October 4.
TikTok entered Vietnam in 2017 and aggressively garnered about 50 million users by February 2023, according to DataReportal.
Tiktok Shop, which commenced operations in the country only in April 2022, has already beefed up its market share to 20% in Q2 2023, per a Metric.vn report. This was even larger than the market share of Lazada, Tiki, and Sendo combined.
Across Southeast Asia, TikTok Shop was projected to grab a 13.2% e-commerce share in 2023, according to Momentum Works’s report in August. Apart from Indonesia and Vietnam, the online marketplace is available in other Southeast Asian countries including Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore.