At an early 2026 corporate event featuring dancing mascots and pyrotechnics, HTV Network’s CEO, Ngo Anh Tan, displayed a Vietnamese sign reading “Doanh Thu Đột Phá,” translating to “Record Revenue.”
Celebrating the company’s growth since its establishment as an “international media firm” dedicated to connecting the globe with credible journalism, HTV now boasts a workforce of over 100 employees, as indicated in a Vietnamese job posting.
However, an investigation by CBC’s visual investigations team and Radio-Canada’s Décrypteurs revealed a stark contrast between the company’s public image and its actual operations.
A network of hundreds of websites and Facebook pages is pushing fake news to a global audience including Canadians. CBC’s visual investigations team and Radio-Canada’s Decrypteurs trace the network to a company in Vietnam that claims to have more than 100 employees to reveal how the global misinformation economy operates.
Behind the scenes, Ngo and his team operate an AI-driven empire in Hanoi, Vietnam, spreading fake news and sensational content across social media platforms worldwide. This misleading content ranges from false reports like Elon Musk banning Teslas in Canada to exploiting tragic events like the Tumbler Ridge shooting through clickbait articles.
The investigation uncovered nearly 200 Facebook pages with over 55 million followers collectively. These pages linked to approximately 50 HTV-affiliated websites that profit by displaying ads alongside misleading political and religious content.
Describing the situation, Fenwick McKelvey, a communication expert at Concordia University in Montreal, remarked, “It’s quite staggering, the scope of what’s being done here. [It’s] totally deceptive.”
Complicating matters, HTV Network shares a name with a legitimate Vietnamese state-owned broadcaster, making it challenging to track its deceptive operations.