“That evening, when I returned home from my part-time job, I received a TikTok clip from my friend that showed me in a bikini during my tour to Sam Son,” L.H, 20, said.

“The clip featured me swimming in a bikini, zooming in on many sensitive parts on my body, including my chest, thighs and buttocks. I was shocked when my face was clearly visible. I was even more shocked when realizing that the clip had attracted hundreds of thousand of views and hundreds of comments,” she said. “Many people made comments about my body with sarcastic and rude words. I burst into tears and I am depressed."

H told VietNamNet that she and three close friends took a tour to a beach in the north. When they were sunbathing, a young man came and asked permission to interview them. 

“He raised some questions about Sam Son beach and celebrities or something like that. As I was in bikini, I felt a little bit inconvenient and answered for form’s sake. I did not imagine that he would capture images of us. My face is the most visible in the clip,” she said.

Shortly after the clip was posted on the internet, it spread rapidly. Many friends and acquaintances of H warned her of the risks, and many others made impolite comments about it. They thought that H had allowed the man to film her.

More seriously, many netizens found H’s Facebook pages and sent obscene messages.

“I tried to contact the video poster on the evening of the post, requesting him to pull down the clips and apologize. He read my message, but did not reply,” H said.

H searched on social networks and discovered that many other girls had been secretly filmed by him and their images also appeared on social media. 

When a girl told him to remove the video and said she would sue him if he did not, the man replied "I dare you!".

H told VietNamNet that she wanted to report the case to the police, but she was not sure if this was a reasonable decision. She feared that more and more people would know her name. 

“If so, things could become even more terrible and uncontrollable,” she added.

H hurriedly locked her social media accounts. She gave up her part-time job at a café as she feared that customers would recognize her.

“I did not dare go out for two weeks. I stayed in my room and cried. When I had to go out to buy food and essential things, I tried to cover myself with large clothes. I did this in a hurry as if I was a criminal,” H recalled.

“I knew that I was coward, but I didn’t know what I should do to overcome the dark days in my life. I felt into a crisis when I heard that the clip was being spread in a chat group of my university friends,” she said.

However, H was most afraid that her parents would discover the clip one day. “I was afraid that my parents would be disappointed in me,” she said.

H’s parents discovered the clip, just one week later, but they did not scold their daughter.

“My mother told me that I needed to become stronger to face the incident,” H said.

Despite the mother’s encouragement and sympathy, H said she still cannot escape the bad feelings. “I am still afraid of going out and I no longer post stories on my social network,” she said.

In early June, local newspapers reported that there is a social network account specializing in "producing interview content". 

The account owner often finds girls in swimsuits at famous beaches in the north to film them and post the videos on TikTok.

Though the girls refuse his proposals for interviews, the man still turns on his camera and zooms in on sensitive parts of their bodies.

After receiving heavy criticism via social networks, the account, named ‘L.T.T’, blocked strangers to the man's personal Facebook page and locked the main channel that has over 700 videos. By that time, the account had attracted 67,000 followers.

Phan Dau