Better Internet for Kids

The United Nations Human Rights Day is observed every year on 10 December. It commemorates the day on which, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). In 1950, the Assembly passed resolution 423 (V), inviting all States and interested organisations to observe 10 December of each year as Human Rights Day.

As part of the Better Internet for Kids (BIK) Quality Assurance Programme (QAP), the Insafe-INHOPE Coordination Teams are jointly conducting a set of fourteen country visits to national Safer Internet Centres (SICs) to better understand what is happening in the Member States: monitoring emerging issues and challenges, identifying good practices to be shared, and harvesting the results of the Better Internet for Kids (BIK) policy. Even though the COVID-19 related safety measures are getting lighter across Europe, it was still agreed by both parties that some of the visits would take place in an online format, particularly in the case of cluster meetings, in order to facilitate interaction between SICs that are geographically distant and different from each other in terms of culture and language. To this end, one such online cluster meeting was organised with the Greek and Irish SICs.

The Insafe network of helplines collects data about the types of calls they receive and this is analysed every three months in order to look at possible trends and emerging issues.

Pressure, overworking, sleep deprivation, comparison with others and feeling unwell are just some of the negative effects of the internet that affect girls more than boys, according to a survey conducted by the Slovenian Safer Internet Centre.

While simultaneously facing the war and the massive displacement of those affected by the conflict, the Ukrainian Safer Internet Centre provides educational tools for teachers, psychologists, and youth workers.

Always available entertaining and informative content provides countless benefits, but what not all content creators are aware of is that it can also have negative consequences on their follower’s psychological health. Children and young people look at individual content creators as role models, ask them for advice on what to do in a particular situation or share that they are victims of various forms of violence.

In October 2022, the day after the Safer Internet Forum (SIF), participants from the SIC+ programme gathered together from all over the world to participate in the SIC+ Focus Group in Brussels. In addition to the SIC+ members, a number of European Safer Internet Centres (SICs), the European Commission (EC), BIK Youth Ambassadors and Twitter were also represented. The session focused on two main topics for exchange: public-private partnerships and Safer Internet Day 2023. This article provides a brief overview of the points discussed.

Cyberbullying does not always start as an intentionally harmful act. At times, it can start as a joke, with someone taking a picture of their peer and sharing it on social networks without permission, and without realising it can indeed be hurtful. Sometimes, teasing could just arise out of boredom, but then turn into a more serious matter.

Last month, the FSM - Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Multimedia-Diensteanbieter e. V. presented its report on the protection of minors from harmful media for the second time after five years. Kathrin from Germany, a longstanding BIK Youth Ambassador was invited to contribute to the panel discussion on the report’s results.

The Irish Safer Internet Centre has started a new youth-led project called ‘Casting the Net’. The project is a new youth-led audio series hosted by teens for teens exploring the breadth and depth of the online world.