Bill Gates has recently posted a photo of an electric pole in Hanoi on his Facebook page to express worry about the increasing power demand in many countries like Vietnam but it accidentally stirred up the local online community.  

The world-renowned American billionaire posted the photo on the most popular social networking site on September 9 with the caption “Energy demand in Vietnam is growing by up to 14% a year. This is putting its old power grid under considerable strain. How will countries like Vietnam tackle the growing demand? Tough decisions lie ahead”.

As of 4:45pm on Sept 9 (Vietnam time) The photo received 42,460 likes, 6,804 comments and 6,736 shares.

Some Vietnamese thanked him for raising that question including Dang Phuc Bao, who wrote: “We all knew many "electric spider's nests" in Vietnam but because of our problems in economy and society we cannot get rid of it in a short time. Thanks for your attention and I hope you and our people will correct it in the future, not only with money but also with international interest”.

Vinh Tran commented: “Our people are suffering much pain from the electricity sector. Electricity prices keep rising while incomes are low”.

Though Bill Gates meant to ask for solutions to the problem, his photo unfortunately triggered a verbal fight on his wall among Vietnamese Facebook users.

Many comments were written in Vietnamese or in hard-to-understand English. Some even posted rude comments.

Tu Le, a Facebook user, could not stand it and called on his Vietnamese fellows to respect the so-called “comment culture”.

“Vietnamese... You guys please stop putting the stupid comments, you guys, this is a public place and many people around the world are looking at these comments. Do you want them to think "Vietnamese people are uneducated"????!!!! Please forgive them, Bill” – Tu Le wrote.