A series of TikTok channels teaching English in Vietnam have 'evaporated'

In just a few days at the end of December 2024, a series of TikTok channels teaching English in Vietnam had their videos deleted, or even their channels locked, due to unusual copyright infringement reports. Many channel owners said that not just one but many of their channels had simultaneously "disappeared" (deleted from the platform - PV ), including newly created channels or backup TikTok channels.

Mr. Nguyen Hoang Huy - a famous 9x teacher with an IELTS score of 9.0 and owning a TikTok channel teaching IELTS for free with thousands of followers at the same time each time he livestreams - said that in just a few days, both the official TikTok channel and the backup channel were deleted. On his personal Facebook page, Huy also confirmed that many people in the IELTS community, from newbies to experienced people, have fallen into the same situation.

A free TikTok channel sharing knowledge about studying and taking the IELTS test with more than 2.2 million likes has been deleted.

"If you go around and check, you will see the 'desolate' scene. Working ineducation , 7 days a week, every day you have to check to see what was destroyed today," Hoang Huy shared.

Kim Ngan, another English-teaching TikTok channel owner, also announced that her channel with more than 141,000 followers and over 1.1 million likes had been lost in this "sweep". Ngan's "Panda Station" channel was built to share materials for IELTS students both inside and outside the center. Despite her protest, the TikTok channel owner realized that hope was very slim. "Hopefully this will be a painful experience for anyone planning to build a channel related to international exams," she commented.

In a notice sent to the channel owner, TikTok said the account was permanently banned for "repeated violations of the company's Intellectual Property Policy." Users have the right to appeal if they believe the decision was a mistake.

An owner of a social media channel system that shares English knowledge said that when looking at the name of the person reporting the copyright, the name of an educational organization and international study abroad consultancy that is currently operating and has an official office in Vietnam appeared. The owner of this channel did not know the exact reason why his content was scanned for copyright, but suspected that it was related to IELTS, or maybe due to the multi-platform automatic trademark copyright scanning tool used by many big brands.

"Perhaps TikTok is a bit sensitive about this when accepting the allegations. I have contacted the other organization, maybe there was a mistake," he said.

Many IELTS students affected when knowledge sharing channels are shut down en masse

Damage to both TikTok users and channel owners

Sharing with Thanh Nien , Mr. Nguyen Nhan - founder of Nhan Nguyen Sharing and an expert in communications and social networks, said that "there are many doubts" because in a short time, a series of social media channels of English centers and IELTS teaching centers were found to have violated copyright. He said that there could be a third party taking advantage of the loopholes in censorship tools and social networking platforms to sabotage and negatively affect the community.

"We cannot rule out the possibility of unfair competition here. Currently, channel owners can only cry for help in vain, sending requests to the support channels of the platform where their accounts are locked. In some cases, after crying for help, some channels are locked again," commented Mr. Nhan.

The current situation of a series of TikTok channels collapsing not only affects the owners but also students following the IETLS program, reducing the opportunity to access many free and useful shares from experienced people or from reputable units.

In addition, this also makes some social network and security experts concerned about the possibility of fraud, especially in the context of the current strong explosion of online fraud. "It is entirely possible that fraud will occur when official pages and channels are reported for violations and locked, then scammers will have the opportunity to create fake accounts impersonating centers and reputable people to carry out online fraud scenarios," an expert warned.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/hang-loat-kenh-tiktok-day-tieng-anh-tai-viet-nam-bi-boc-hoi-185241230102213282.htm