Who’s teaching Vietnam’s next generation how to live in cyberspace?

That was all it took for the Internet to dig into his past, discover his dismissal from law school, and question everything else on his impressive profile.

But what does any of this actually have to do with IELTS?

Some defended him because his free lessons genuinely helped them, or simply because they adore him as an online figure.

Others sided with the critics, saying authenticity and accuracy matter more than generosity in education.

But maybe none of this noise is really about him at all.

Maybe the frustration comes from the longstanding tension in Vietnam's booming online English teaching and learning market, where someone teaching for free disrupts more than just pricing.

But there is no real way to untangle every accusation and no meaning in adding more fuel to the fire.

What is telling is how quickly a young, ambitious teacher becomes the newest Internet's punchbag. Maybe that is the nature of rage bait.

Maybe it is the modern short-form news cycle where a single comment from a random user can be leveraged into headlines and generate hundreds of thousands of interactions.

Either way, it tells us more about Vietnam's digital culture than it ever could about any individual.

Vietnam is among Southeast Asia's most active social media populations, with its youth spending hours scrolling every day.

This is not unique to Vietnam, but it has become one of the biggest concerns for local policymakers who are trying to balance media literacy and cybersecurity with a population that lives almost entirely online.

It is undeniable that technology has pushed the country forward, yet there remains a clear pattern: the younger the user, the heavier the impact.

And each year, the first age of exposure drops again.

This feature picks up from an earlier question of whether the young are ruling technology or being ruled by it.

While the national Digital Literacy for All campaign positions digital competence as a requirement for modern citizenship, it still revolves mainly around those who struggle with basic access and foundational skills.

That means another reality might be overlooked: the generation most immersed in social media receives the least guidance on how to navigate it with awareness and integrity, especially first-year university students learning to manage the independence of adulthood for the first time.

In a world where misinformation moves faster than common sense and one impulsive post can ignite a flashpoint, media and information literacy should no longer be optional.

For a young population like Vietnam, the way students consider, choose, and conduct oneself online carries enormous weight in constructing the nation's long-term development.

The challenge is no longer teaching young people how to get online but teaching them what to believe, what to ignore, and what to verify before it becomes tomorrow's public drama.

That responsibility perhaps sits with educators and curriculum designers who must move faster than the platforms that shape the youth themselves.

The current landscape

Vietnam now counts more than 76 million social media users, a number so large that digital life has become nearly universal wherever Internet access exists.

The demographic leans noticeably young, with over 80 percent of ages 12-13 already online.

A 2025 study found that 73.7 percent of Vietnamese youths are active users, and among university students, usage is almost absolute.

They move across multiple platforms daily, which is unsurprising given how interconnected these apps have become. Social media is not just present in student life but rather folds itself into the rhythm of it.

That said, deep familiarity does not equal deep understanding.

Freshmen are found to struggle most with excessive social media use, and recent cybersecurity reports repeatedly show that university students remain one of most susceptible to scams, online harassment, and emotional manipulation.

They enter adulthood with maximum digital exposure yet minimal access to formal instruction on online safety, a contrast that grows starker every day.

T., a sociology graduate from Monash University in Australia and now attending law school in Ho Chi Minh City, believes the vulnerability of first-year students is rooted in transition.

"There are two shifts happening at once," he says.

"You're moving from being a student to being an adult, and for many in Vietnam, you're also relocating from rural or suburban areas to big cities.

"Suddenly you're the oldest in school but the youngest in society.

"That combination makes people more vulnerable, especially when misinformation and cybersecurity dominate headlines."

He explains that while younger students matter too, many Vietnamese or Asian parents assume their underaged children are harmless online and therefore harder to persuade.

High schoolers, regardless, are still under parental, institutional, and legal protection.

First-year university students, however, sit in the gap between protection and independence, which is why they require more urgent attention.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Gen Z, those born from the late 1990s to early 2000s, and information continues to evolve, particularly their reliance on social media for educational content.

A 2024 qualitative study of Vietnamese Gen Z found that TikTok draws students toward explanations that feel authentic, casual, and conversational, almost like 'having a conversation with a friend' rather than attending a lecture.

Comment sections, stitched videos, and online challenges also foster informal learning communities where authority feels shared rather than imposed, filling what many think is missing from formal classrooms.

L., a tutor at Monash University, agrees that influencer-style explanations have become the preferred way for students to digest news because they make things feel instant and more relatable.

Yet she worries about the scale of exposure.

"The amount of information is enormous, so sometimes their brains just don't have the capacity to filter or verify what's credible," the tutor remarks.

"Carefully crafted content makes a strong impression and it's easy for them to gravitate toward that."

She adds that speed is only part of the issue and repetition is what makes it so persistent.

"Because the algorithms keep showing them and their friends the same things, the cycle of misinformation is perpetuated."

The appropriate expansion

Before deciding what direction change should take, it is important to clarify what is missing from formal education.

A recent case study describes media literacy as the ability to judge accuracy, spot bias, and understand how the media shape society.

Digital citizenship, meanwhile, refers to behaving responsibly online, including protecting privacy, staying safe, and respecting others.

Bringing these two concepts into something workable, UNESCO's Media and Information Literacy framework touches on both.

It encourages critical thinking, informed participation, and the understanding that online engagement is never separate from broader social responsibilities.

None of these ideas are new. In fact, they sound almost too obvious.

Yet the absence of these skills becomes immediately noticeable the moment one scrolls through TikTok.

Whether it is the comment section or news appearing on the For You Page, the highest engagement often reveals how the least credible content is driving the algorithm.

It explains, perhaps, why content moderation alone can never succeed since it remains one-sided.

Rather, the answer lies in the difference between cleaning up the spill and fixing the leak.

It may help to think of this the way schools think of swearing.

A rule may control behavior inside the classroom, but once students step outside the gate, the rule dissolves into roads swamped in traffic and blaring horns.

The same goes for digital spaces. Young people need the habit of treating online spaces as real communities where words accumulate, leave traces and shape the atmosphere, whether healthy or polluted.

It is time for the perceptions of online platforms as anonymous vacuums to be replaced with parallel societies where rage bait is like the loud stranger in the room who knows exactly which button to press.

And their only goal is to turn irritation into engagement. Literacy is what teaches one not to snap back on instinct.

J., a recent high school graduate who frequently takes online courses, decodes this learning curve.

"At first it's hard to know if a course is credible," he says.

"I think I'm lucky. But it's important to know your goal.

"They say coaches never play, so take theories from online coaches and creators, but the practice is on you.

"Free or not, take such content with a grain of salt.

"Same with rage bait.

"Time is crucial, so it's better to understand the purpose of the conversation, whether online or offline."

He then reflects on conventional schooling almost as a comparison.

Students rarely absorb everything teachers say but instead keep only what feels useful or relatable.

In a way, his words point toward something educators already know but rarely address in online contexts: young people are navigating digital learning environments almost entirely on their own.

They are building literacy through trials, errors, and instincts, rather than through any structured or reliable guidance.

And by the time adults have a glimpse of what is happening, the learning has already begun without them.

The way forward

Universities could intervene meaningfully with a simple step: requiring first-year students to complete compulsory media literacy and digital citizenship modules before enrolling in any courses.

In fact, many Australian universities already adopt similar systems to give students freedom to learn at their own pace while indicating that these skills are not complementary but foundational, as essential as academic integrity or research skills.

Whether built on a media and information literacy framework or developed independently, these modules could demonstrate an institution's commitment to keep up with the speed of technological change and their understanding of digital transformation not only as the arrival of new machines but as a shift in how society itself behaves.

It may be time to move beyond the usual discussions about social media diminishing face-to-face interaction and instead consider how existing consumption patterns could be redirected into something socially constructive.

The goal is not to suppress or eliminate youth digital habits, but to elevate them into something intentional and beneficial.

At its core, this is a question of nurture versus nature, where the digital environment is the nature young people grow up in.

While they must learn that digital life requires new forms of awareness, educators and policymakers must also recognize that holding onto old approaches is neither realistic nor timely.

If the youth are expected to drive meaningful change, then the environments shaping them must evolve as well, with clarity about what they are being prepared for.

This feature hopes to place another question on the table, expanding from whether young people are driving change or simply chasing trends.

It is equally about whether institutions meant to guide them can adapt quickly enough and whether they can build a digital ecosystem where young people can act conscientiously, critically, and confidently in the society they are already helping to shape.

Note: Names of interviewees have been abbreviated at their request.