Say Em Chứ Không Say Rượu = “Drunk? You’re Not Drunk!”

An examination of a prolific Vietnamese language TikTok account leads me to suspect that South East Asia for-hire SEO and content creation teams are being employed to ensure that pro-Kremlin invasion videos keep circulating on TikTok globally

Things are moving fast in relation to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The war doesn’t seem to be going all that well for the Kremlin, and the initial hours and days and weeks of the war have morphed into whatever we have now. Some time ago, Putin went off on an “OK boomer” riff about J.K. Rowling and cancel culture.

With these kinds of red hot cultural touchstones as talking points, perhaps he’s thinking of running for the GOP nomination in 2024. He would seem to have some support among a percentage of the GOP base:

Anyways, as I have said I have been looking at lots of things, and reading lots of things, and thinking about lots of things. Being more home bound than usual these past couple weeks has also steered me towards some unusual things.

Part of the problem with examining what happened with the Kremlin’s pro-war, pro-invasion, disinformation machine is that some things are moving so fast that a lot of other smaller things aren’t being documented or contemplated in the middle of this information overload.

Take for example, this unusual anomaly that I came across the other day.

Looking for odd, Pro_Kremlin content on TikTok. Head on over to Vietnamese TikTok, and spend some time browsing through Vietnamese language hashtags related to Russia. Eventually you’ll run into accounts like @sayemchukhongsayruou

I’ll describe this oddity below:

For the past two weeks or so, I have noticed a small, but noticeably uptick in pro-Putin content on TikTok. Now, pro-Putin content does not necessarily mean pro-Ukraine invasion content. My suspicion is that those folks or organizations that might be engaged in organized coordinated inauthentic behavior campaigns realized that overtly pro-invasion content probably isn’t that popular and could possibly result in faster removal from a platform like TikTok.

But what about those accounts that have dived in and fully embraced pro-Kremlin narratives of the invasion of Ukraine? Since TikTok limited Russian access to TikTok, the explicit implication was that pro-Kremlin narratives were to be greatly limited to those users outside of the Russian Federation. There was even talk of “geo-fencing” of RT and Sputnik content on TikTok in order to ensure that European restrictions of their content were respected.

Not sure how this will work — hundreds (thousands) of TikTok videos use RT content and the RT yellow square is ubiquitous on a great many videos. Are we (users) supposed to flag EVERY video?

Well that hasn’t exactly happened. Russian accounts promoting the war are uploading tutorials on using a VPN to post to the wider TikTok community. And, there are a lot of accounts outside of Russia that have been, and continue to, upload pro-Kremlin, pro-invasion content.

A tutorial from an enthusiastically pro-invasion Russian TikTok user on how to use a VPN to continue posting on the larger TikTok space.

Here’s an example of one such account that went from posting seemingly innocuous content in February, to suddenly switch to hard-core, Pro-Kremlin content:

On Marcy 24, 2022, this account had a bio of Russia hearts Ukraine, with a listed email address. This email address is about to become important.

Email address connected to a TikTok account that switched after the war started from posting videos of cute Vietnamese girls singing ballads to stuff like videos from Chechen soldiers and odes to Putin. This email address will become important in a moment.

Want to know what else is interesting about this account? It’s re-posting pro-Kremlin content with Vietnamese text on screen along with Vietnamese language hashtags. I’ve been interested to read about support for Putin and Vietnam, and about a possible lessening of support for Putin after the invasion of Ukraine.

Interesting article — thanks to @elisethoma5 to steering me to it.

This account went from posting cute and cuddly content like this:

Description: “Muốn có tình yêu lâu dài — Và kết thúc bằng một đám cưới” — “Want everlasting love — end with marriage!”

To creepy menacing shit like this:

Something like: Nga cao Buoc va ukraine Phat trien vu khi sinh hoc Sat bien gioi Nag” — “Russia and Ukraine have a relationship when (since) they are both born in Russia(?)” The video also comes with COVID-19 hashtags.

Believe you me, I have been diving into the videos themselves, and some really interesting stuff is to be found. I’ll get into that aspect of it soon.

But what’s interesting about this account is that it lists an email address. This email address tracks back to an SEO company in Ho Chi Minh city.

A Google Search for the “Thoaingo.vnkingnet@gmail.com” email address associated with TikTok account leads to a Search Engine Optimization/web development/content creation firm in Vietnam.

While this doesn’t necessarily prove that this account is for-hire, I would strongly suspect that it is. If this account is being used in a commercial way by someone directly vested in promoting the Kremlin’s preferred narrative in Ukraine, then it most certainly has a secondary purpose. Possibly promoting one of the songs it repeatedly uses in an attempt to profit by the song becoming a viral hit.

Regardless, there’s a long digital trail behind the email address (since scrubbed) that was listed on the TikTok account.

There was this:

Searching for the email address lead me to a number of pages that listed “thietkewebtt.net” — although the domain has expired, there’s a lot of history behind what it was.

I found this, and ran a Google Search for the domain.

Long story short, but a Google search lead me to a completely open SharePoint form run by the Ho Chi Minh city government. I guess that it is supposed to be open for transparency purposes. It provided me a host of information about the company behind the email address associated with the pro-Kremlin posts on TikTok.

Completely open SharePoint. Associated Gab, YouTube, CrunchyRoll. If I was a Russian, trying to ensure that pro-Kremlin videos targeted Vietnam AND ensured that they kept circulating on the internet, this is exactly the kind of guy i’d hire. Information saved into PasteBin.

I’m working on correlating and examining these videos. I have already found some interesting things about where this TikTok account got the videos they were sharing — and some possible connections to a number of other TikTok accounts engaged in the same behavior.

I’m getting ready to approach TikTok with this, along with some additional information. I’ll keep you posted!