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Webs for teens: a lot of rubbish
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VietNamNet Bridge – The boom in Vietnamese language information websites has stirred up many problems, reports Tuoi Tre. Warnings have been released (Stars of scandals). Readers told the daily their worries about some websites for teenage.

As the cost of buying domain names and software and hiring servers gets cheaper, it becomes very easy to have an information website. And, though the number of websites increases, the volume and quality of news seems not to rise. Instead the society sees growing piles of “cultural rubbish”.


Information chaos

If one stumbles into a website targeted on a young audience, for example kenh14.vn, he/she may recoil in surprise, asking “what information are teens reading?



If a visitor types in the keyword “lộ hàng” (exposing ones assets, either accidentally or intentionally) , the Google search box integrated on kenh14.vn returns thousands of articles about this content. Similarly, keyword “ảnh nóng” (sexy photos) brings about 791 articles and 921 articles are returned for “hot girl.” This website was launched only two years ago.

On another website for teenage, dan… net, which calls itself “the place connecting the Vietnamese teen community”, are articles with headlines like “16 postures of love”, “guiding love postures of Kama Sutra”, “teen girl takes off her trousers on the bus”, etc.

“9X” refers to the ‘90’s generation,’ today’s teenagers. A website named 9x…vn has “Teen self-satisfied with dog” or “9x girls with super-big butts” and other sexy headlines. A website for young people named sa…vn posted “One night at a hotel”, “Teen prostitute hairdresser,” etc. Most popular on viet…com, another site aimed at youth, are stories like “Teen rolls up blouse to show bust”, “Naked girls in fighting”, etc.

These websites tell every detail about the personal lives of both Vietnamese and foreign celebrities and backstage show business stories. From them Vietnam’s teens learn that a singer has lost her sexy photos, an actress is having an affair with a rich businessman, a female star smokes and is addicted to alcohol, a famous actress often quarrels with her husband, neglects her pet or … loses her hat. From their body measurements to the colours of their nails, world celebrities are exploited complete with photos to serve teens from 13-19 years old.

Rather ordinary stories are “re-processed” by sub-editors into “hot stories” with liberal use of question marks, quotation marks or thrilling words to excite teen readers’ curiosity. For instance, reporting an actor who played the role of a vampire who goes walking with his son, a website wrote: “Vampire takes his son to street.” The headline of a story about the sudden death of a paparazzi is “The Lady Gaga murders”. An interview with a young singer in a print magazine with the headline “My predestined affinity hasn’t appeared” was posted on a website for teenage with the headline “Why do I need to have baby with [actor Johnny] Tri Nguyen?”

How about educational items? The “Study-Education” column on the teen…vn website introduces how to copy from a friend’s work, how to cheat in sports or win status with other students. The language on these sites is extremely odd, and full of wrong grammar and spelling.



Where are government agencies?

Though these websites are “information webs,” the information posted on these sites is copied from other sources, both online and print, with source quotations like “according to XYZ”, without the name of the authors. In many cases, the copied stories are totally different from original information, harming the prestige of official newswires.

Most of these sites are managed by companies but they operate like e-newspapers. Some websites have titles like reporters, editors, sub-editors, etc. Kenh14, for example, has freelance reporters who are students. The website tuva…com claims falsely that it’s an authorized ‘online newspaper.’ The stories published on this site are unsourced though all of them are copied from legitimate newspapers and magazines.

The goal of these websites is to lure readers and sell advertisements. Leaving aside whether they violate the rules on advertising, it is illegal to use the intellectual property of others to do business. In addition, many sites belong to individuals who have not bothered to get a licence.

“General news websites” are mushrooming on the net with no oversight. They instruct our youth on fashion trends, how to be stylish and and urge them to patronize luxurious entertainment centres. The young tend to learn from their idols. Reading information about a beauty queen who will pose for nude photos for charity and seeing sexy photos of a Chinese student, also for “charitable purpose”, a contestant in a teen pageant stated she too would be “willing to pose for nude photos for charity.”

“Cultural rubbish” is a broad category that not only covers useless and illegally copied information bad things that can affect the young. With all this going on, where are the government agencies?



Reader comments

Duc Thanh writes: “Surfing some foreign sites for teens like teen.com, teenmag.com, kidshealth.org, etc., I’m impressed by their youthful and simple design and information for the young. I tried to make a comparison between these sites and some Vietnamese sites for teens like kenh14.vn, hihihehe.com, and teen.vn to find out the differences.

“The difference is not in design or technical skills of the website designers but the content of information they provide to the youth. Looking through columns on the Vietnamese sites, readers will only see “teen shock” and “gossips” with stories about celebrities with sexy photos, their lifestyles, etc., tricks to woo a girl or a boy, information that teaches pragmatic and flighty lifestyles. There is a little healthy and educational entertaining information or information about studies. We can search for hundreds of dirty articles and photos on these websites.

“The language on these sites is a hodgepodge, with Vietnamese and English mixed together (10 tips cham soc ban chan [10 tips to care your feet]) and languages that one can’t find out in dictionaries (Musik, 2-Tek!, tjm 0x kg ne`, Can` Tym Gap 1 BX). All of these things are harming our teen readers.”

Duc Toan, who identifies himself as an officer of the HCMC Foreign Trade University Student Association, asks “what is Kenh14.vn doing with the young? Bad information about lifestyle, fashion and entertainment has been published freely on this site. Notably, this website is among the top sites in Vietnam in terms of hita and readers, according to Alexa.

“It is not unusual to see clubs named “I don’t like kenh14.vn” on facebook but this website is still very popular. A member of Kenh14.vn’s forum told me “The success of Kenh14 is that it is hated but the kids still visit it”.

“I’m scared that my little sister will be attracted by such website and neglect studies. I wish the authorities would take measures against such websites!”

‘baochau.susu’ writes that “we kids often visit kenh14.vn. Many people say this website is a rag with too many stories about celebrities and sexy photos. This comment is unfair. Many ‘legitimate’ websites for adults are also full of similar content. Adults tell us to not visit kenh14.vn but if we click to the websites they favor, the contents and designs are not different.

“I think instead of absolutely criticizing kenh14.vn, we need to address the content of this website to make it more useful for teenagers. If this website were to give up the lifestyle of “venerating hot boys and hot girls”, the use of deformed English and Vietnamese and have a clear educating direction, I think kenh14.vn can develop strongly, at least in the eyes of teenage readers, who always like entertaining information.”

‘khoa05cvl’ comments that “though I’m a teen, I don’t like such websites like kenh14.vn. It’s a rag full of lies. Reading such things doesn’t help teens in any way. If teens want to relax, they can listen to music and read newspaper or books. There are a lot of other entertaining stuff that is more useful and interesting than information about hot boys, hot girls or singer X showing her bust or actress X falling.”

‘huynh_lemai’ exclaims that we should “notice one simple thing! News like “Poor students overcome difficulties”, “Children in remote areas still go to school,” etc. have never appeared on kenh14. Sad!”

‘Trieuduong85’ asks “why is it only the websites for teens that get criticized? Are websites for adults are so serious? They also post slipshod articles like “The most beautiful Korean busts”, “The butts of celebrity”, “Let’s admire star footballers’ girlfriends in their hot bikinis.” This garbage is everywhere, from online to print newspapers.

“Is it meaningful to forcing kids to learn serious things while “adults” waste their time reading junk news? I’m not a teen anymore and I don’t like such websites as kenh14 but can’t see that I have the right to preach at teens when many adults are not good examples.”

Finally, ‘phanxineblog.com’ asks why we don’t carry out research projects on the impact of trashy websites on the youth or on the society. We should ask why our youth like visiting these websites rather than serious ones. Instead of getting alarmed by the appearance of these websites, let’s study why these websites develop strongly and why the youth like them.

I believe that once readers reach a certain education level or awareness, they will require information at higher level than the stuff supplied by these websites.

VietNamNet/Tuoi Tre