KOL Summit 2026: Verification must be a creator's first tool before posting

A KOL's first piece of equipment should be verification before publication, speakers told the second national KOL Summit in Ho Chi Minh City.

At the conference, Pham Xuan Ha of VCCorp said negative and anger-inducing information often spreads more easily. Citing international research, he said false news can reach users many times faster than true news, while negative headlines are more likely to attract clicks. Algorithms, he argued, do not independently know what people should see. They reflect human data, behavior and emotion.

Ha urged content creators to pause when information comes from only one source and check it before sharing in anger. He also recommended having a second person read material before publication, especially on sensitive issues. His suggested three-question filter asks whether the content names someone without seeking their view, whether children appear in it, and whether the people involved could feel harmed if they saw it.

Correction, he said, is another essential part of the creator's responsibility. If a creator makes a mistake, the error should be acknowledged and corrected publicly, rather than quietly deleted or changed. "An algorithm can give you a great many views overnight, but what it cannot give you is trust," Ha said. Trust takes years to build, he added, while misleading content can damage a KOL for a long time.

Hoang Ninh, deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade's e-commerce and digital economy department, discussed responsibility in digital commerce. He cited authorities' discovery and destruction of 76,000 boxes of a three-in-one detox vegetable powder, noting that some families reportedly continued to keep and use the product after enforcement action.

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An algorithm can give you a great many views overnight, but what it cannot give you is trust.