Marking This Year’s Safer Internet Day

2 years ago 169

We’re launching a series of educational campaigns across Europe, the Middle East and Africa to help give people the tools and knowledge to enjoy a safer and secure internet.
These initiatives include resources for teachers, a mini web series for youth on responsible online behaviors, updated parents’ guides for Instagram and more.

To mark this year’s Safer Internet Day, we’re launching a series of initiatives to help create and promote a safer internet for all, in line with this year’s theme, “Together for a better internet.”

In Poland we’ve launched Get Digital, providing research-informed lessons, tips and resources that will help young people develop the skills they need to become responsible digital citizens. Partnering with the Empowering Children Foundation, NASK and UNICEF, and receiving support from the National Broadcasting Council, these resources are designed for educators and families both in the classroom and at home. Across the Arab region, we’ve launched My Digital World, a platform providing step-by-step instructions for teachers working with students ages 13-18 years old.

To demonstrate young people’s role in creating a safer internet in Kenya, we’ve partnered with music celebrity couple Wahu and Nameless and creator Azzia Nasenya. In collaboration with their 15-year-old daughter, Tumiso, Wahu and Nameless will share stories focused on online safety tips and host a live discussion about their journey discovering her talents, supporting her online content creation and how they’ve been involved in ensuring her online safety.

With input from Webwise, we’re launching the updated Parent and Carer’s Guide to Instagram to provide parents and caregivers across Ireland a deeper understanding of Instagram’s safety and privacy features. Similarly in Italy, we’re working with local media to distribute the recently launched Italian version of the guide.

In Côte d’Ivoire, we partnered with MTV Staying Alive Foundation to launch a mini web series to educate youth about responsible online behaviors. The MTV Shuga Babi special edition will tackle important topics such as catfishing, self-awareness, non-consensual intimate imagery and relationships online.

We will also soon partner with The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC), Child Helpline International and MTN Group in a campaign spanning 10 African countries and aimed at capacity building to tackle child abuse. Partnering with Himaya, a Lebanese NGO, we will launch the “Report it. Don’t Share it.” campaign that aims to prevent the spread of child sexual abuse material online.

Our mission has always been to create platforms where people can connect and share their experiences with others from all around the world. But people cannot connect with others and express themselves freely without feeling safe. Here we take a look back on some of the recent advances in safety we’ve made, including:

Launching a new child safety hub and revamped digital literacy program on the Safety Center to empower young people, their parents and teachers to practice connecting online more safely.
Helping produce new safety resources for women specifically, including a new women’s safety hub and the industry-wide StopNCII.org tool to combat the spread of non-consensually shared intimate images.
Instituting new bullying and harassment policy protections against sexualizing attacks of public figures, including of journalists and human rights defenders, and coordinated harassment of all individuals all to help private individuals and public figures feel safer across all platforms.
Messenger added a new tool, Restrict, to give people more control over their messaging space, allowing you to limit unwanted messages without having to block or unfollow someone you know.
Messenger Kids launching Pledge Planets, an interactive in-app activity that teaches kids how to be good digital citizens.