Vietnamese these days are talking a lot about TikTok as the land of toxic content, fake news, copyright infringement and "sensitive" political news.
Vietnam agencies have said they will conduct inspections of TikTok next month to deal with harmful content and false information.
Such toxic content exists on Facebook as well, especially on Watch (watching video), and Reels (short videos).
With Watch, there are numerous pages and news channels providing hot political news updated every day. The pages show videos with offensive comments that provide fake news, and misrepresent and defame the Party and State leaders.
In recent years, pages introducing films, including Vietnam’s movies and dramas, have appeared on Watch. The common characteristic of the pages is the presence of short clips (10-15 minutes) introducing the films, which is clearly copyright infringement.
Also, on Watch, numerous videos disseminate depraved culture as many pages show adult films from Japan, China and the US.
The same situation can be seen on Reels, the feature launched by Facebook to compete directly with TikTok.
There are pirated images and videos, and toxic content. One can find images of sexy girls dancing without underwear, and videos showing off girls’ bodies, which are associated with links advertising gambling games and aphrodisiacs, ‘sensitive’ services and drugs with unclear origin.
Khoi Nguyen, a provider of online service on social network platforms in HCM City, said that it is very difficult to prevent sensitive content from Facebook because they are "politically sensitive content".
The problem is that the platform cannot detect if this content violates the laws. As a result, when users report violations on the platforms, they will be told to report to local authorities.
As for Reels, Nguyen Hoang Minh from HCM City said that the content is nearly similar to TikTok. Many accounts have moved their videos from TikTok to Reels, therefore, the appearance of toxic contents proves to be unavoidable.
Regarding Watch, Facebook has a good tool that ‘filters’ copyright infringed content and the content showing a lot of cleavage, but users can ‘fool’ it by hiding ‘sensitive’ scenes. In general, it is very difficult to discover violations. When users turn off music and only retain the voice of introducers, it is very difficult to strike a copyright of the videos.