It’s been my experience that international students are more at risk of insecurity due to outdated regulations on the amount of money they must have, increasing costs all around, and restrictions on their ability to work and for their spouse to work.
Combine that with social media culture and communication challenges and we get situations like this, I work with a number of students from India and they speak English well, but differently from a long term Canadian. Often, the english is more direct in word choice and more… bombastic or sales oriented. Combine that with social media presence and you are bound to get culture clash.
So instead of using a more Canadian culturally appropriate phrase, like “here is where to turn when in need” or “this helps me afford rent”, many will just be less cautious and might say “here is how I save hundreds of bucks” or “here is how I get free food”.
That it turns out this guy was struggling like many others, and trying to help people like him is honestly no surprise to me.