Better Internet for Kids

During the lockdown period, Child Focus noticed a considerable increase in online safety issues among children. In a year, non-consensual sexting and grooming cases increased by 50 per cent, and cases of sexual extortion of minors have doubled. Therefore, several companies have decided to include a commitment to a “better internet” in the goals of their corporate social responsibility.

Safer Internet Day, the worldwide day for a better internet, was back for its 18th edition. Turning the internet into a fun, fulfilling, and safe space is more than ever a priority during this public health crisis, where children massively use screens for social contact. An intergenerational dialogue is even more essential, as more than 60 per cent of children use the internet for more than four hours a day in Belgium. How can we facilitate this dialogue and promote a responsible and creative use of social media?

Following the emergence and successful spread of the #MeToo movement in Greece, the Greek Youth Panel was inspired to create a similar campaign targeted at Greek adults, children, and youth. The #Speak (#Mila) campaign’s purpose is to raise awareness of sexual harassment and cyberbullying and to encourage both victims and witnesses to speak up and break the silence on those issues.

CyberSquad is a citizen movement that marks the beginning of an era showing solidarity and positivity for children and youth online. With the support of MolenGeek, Google, and Test Achats, Belgian Safer Internet Centre Child Focus launched the web platform CyberSquad, which is aimed at and elaborated on by teenagers. The goal is to offer a space to share and exchange, where they can find answers and some help related to their online concerns.

The Portuguese Safer Internet Centre, in collaboration with the Portuguese Institute for Sport and Youth (IPDJ), translated and adapted the Austrian guide on “Digitalisation and climate: environmental awareness in the digital world." The aim is to provide "suggestions for a conscious life in the area of tension between digitalisation and climate." The motto of this publication is "Think first, then click'.

The Better Internet for Kids (BIK) Team recently wrote an article for eTwinning, the community for schools in Europe, on how education professionals can tackle disinformation and misinformation and foster media literacy in your classroom. The article is reproduced below, with permission from the eTwinning Team, and available in 29 languages on the eTwinning platform.

Each year, the Estonian Safer Internet Centre (SIC) focuses on one topical issue when celebrating Safer Internet Day in Estonia. This year, Safer Internet Day paid particular attention to misinformation, and to this end, the Estonian Safer Internet Centre organised several events.

Today, the Insafe network meets online for a focus group on the topic of children’s rights in relation to the digital environment, more particularly with regards to how policy in that field can be translated into practice.

For the first time, the traditional Safer Internet Day (SID) celebration in Spain was marked with an online event due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. INCIBE, the Spanish Safer Internet Centre (SIC) coordinator, hosted the event over two days, 9-10 Februarya2021, under the slogan “Together for a better internet: more connected, more secure”.

Making the internet safer remains a strategic objective in Portugal. According to the EU Kids Online 2020 report, approximately 1 in 4 children or young people say they have had an "uncomfortable" experience online (18 per cent for boys; 27 per cent for girls). Equally, more than half of children say they have difficulties in verifying which information online is true (53 per cent).