Insafe Weekly Update

The 21st edition of Safer Internet Day - which took place last Tuesday, 6 February - was once again a great success. Thanks to all Safer Internet Centres and colleagues for your support and enthusiasm in marking the day – read an initial overview article on the BIK public portal. See also What's been happening on the BIK public portal? (below) for more announcements from the day.

SICs are now requested to proceed with compiling their own results by completing the customary SID reporting template (including a blog article). The deadline for submissions is COB on Tuesday, 5 March 2024 (although you are welcome to send blog articles sooner to support post-SID dissemination activities). Submissions and queries should be directed to  saferinternetday@betterinternetforkids.eu. We recognise that many SICs continue to celebrate SID throughout the whole month; if this reporting date poses an issue for you, please let us know as soon as possible.

INHOPE actively engages in the development of resources, campaigns, and events to support Safer Internet Day. By collaborating, launching, and promoting impactful initiatives, INHOPE aims to address online safety challenges within its domain and lead the way for change. 

This year, INHOPE highlighted its member hotlines' contributions to a safer internet which, despite originating at a local level, resonate globally. From Germany to Greece, Australia to Albania, and Colombia, the initiatives of INHOPE members span the globe. In collaboration with partner organisations, they tackled issues ranging from pornography and sexual content to artificial intelligence and education. Discover more in this article on the INHOPE website.  

As mentioned last week, the user-friendly booklet of the Digital Services Act (DSA) provisions for the protection of minors was published on Safer Internet Day and is available to download from the website of the Publications Office of the European Union in all EU languages.

We are exploring options for making print copies available to Safer Internet Centres (at no or minimal cost) and therefore wish to gauge interest from the network. As such, Safer Internet Centres are invited to contact Annarita with an indication of which languages they would want and in what quantity before COB on Wednesday, 21 February 2024. We will then review all requests to see what is possible and confirm the next steps in a future Weekly Update.

The next Insafe/INHOPE joint training meeting will take place on Wednesday 17 and Thursday 18 April 2024 in Warsaw, Poland. The meeting will start at 13:00 on Wednesday 17 April and will finish at 17:00 on Thursday 18 April. There will be some optional activities taking place on the morning of Wednesday – a Media Literacy in the Classroom session and also a visit to the Polish helpline. The Insafe Steering Committee meeting will take place on the morning of Friday, 19 April 2024.

The meeting will be held at the Airport Hotel Okęcie. A special room rate is available; access this by going to the hotel website, click book a room, then in the upper right corner click enter code. The code to use is EUN. 

Registration is now open for the training meeting and includes information on the draft agenda, as well as the networking dinner and other side events. Please register as soon as possible and by COB on Thursday, 29 February 2024 at the latest. For any questions or further information on any aspect of the training meeting, please contact Karl. 

Thanks to all those who joined the online meeting this morning; notes are being prepared and will be uploaded to the BIK community in the coming days/shared in the next Weekly Update. For further information in the meantime, please contact Karl.

Several colleagues from helplines and hotlines have already been approached by the organisation expected to become the Digital Services Coordinator (DSC) in their country and asked to consider applying to become a trusted flagger under the auspices of the Digital Services Act (DSA). This meeting, taking place online on Wednesday, 14 February 2024 at 14:00 CET, will be an opportunity to share experiences about the local negotiations that are taking place and to discuss good practice, financial implications, workload etc. Use this link to join the meeting; for further information, please contact Karl.

Meta will hold an online policy briefing at 16:00 CET on Wednesday, 14 February 2024. The briefing will be led by Anne Hobson (from the Reality Labs policy team) and will provide an opportunity to hear about the current safety features for children and young people within Quest and Horizon Worlds. Please let Karl know if you would like to attend. Many thanks to those helplines who have already expressed their interest – hopefully you should have received an invitation already; please let Karl know if you haven’t. 

This webinar series is part of the Better Internet for Kids project, funded by the European Commission.

INHOPE is kicking off the 2024 Expert Insights Webinar series with a unique insight into youth empowerment on online platforms. Join online on Thursday, 15 February 2024 at 14:00 CET for a deep dive into the safety measures ZEPETO develops and implements in their metaverse to keep their users safe, informed, and empowered. 
  
What tools do they develop and use to detect harm? What features do they utilise to inform and empower their users? How do they educate their community about online safety? Speaker Elyse Lee, Head of Global Policy and Engagement at ZEPETO, provides a unique insight into what ZEPETO has done to empower the young people who navigate their metaverse. 

Further information and registration are available from the INHOPE website. 

The next meeting of the helpline early warning group will take place on Wednesday, 6 March 2024 at 14:00 CET. Use this link to join the meeting; for further information, please contact Karl.

The online meeting with colleagues from Video Games Europe (VGE, formerly the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE)) and some of its members (previously planned for the morning of Thursday, 15 February 2024) is being rescheduled. The new date and joining information will be shared as soon as possible. For further information in the meantime, please contact Karl.

A new AdWiseOnline campaign launched on Safer Internet Day 2024 as part of a range of new initiatives within the current BIK Phase 5 project. Its key aim is to raise children's and young people's awareness of digital marketing practices and empower them with knowledge about their economic rights. Informed by research, the campaign will focus on a range of (potentially problematic) practices such as influencer and in-game marketing. A research report - Manipulative digital marketing practices targeting children and young people - was published last week as part of the launch activities, and awareness raising will continue throughout March and April 2024 across various BIK communication channels.

Discover more about the initiative on the BIK portal and in a launch article here.

Please note, this first edition of the campaign is an internal pilot being rolled out in cooperation with a subset of Safer Internet Centres and European Consumer Centres (ECCs) in collaboration with a campaign Task Force. Following evaluation, it will be scaled for full roll-out in 2025, but SICs are already invited to use and disseminate the campaign's resources and messages. 

In case of any questions about the AdWiseOnline campaign, please contact Inna.

A new BIK MOOC (massive open online course) will launch on Monday, 11 March 2024 for a duration of approximately 5 weeks. This course will provide background information and understanding of key initiatives that are shaping the digital experiences of children and young people. It will also explore how teachers and schools can help to protect and promote children's rights in a digital world, how education can empower children and young people with the necessary skills and competences for the Digital Decade, and methods to encourage all youth to actively participate in shaping a better and safer internet.

The course is targeted at primary and secondary school teachers of any subject. Other educational professionals and stakeholders, such as heads of schools, school support staff, and policymakers with an interest in this topic are also welcome to join.

Find out more and enrol on the European Schoolnet Academy.

Safer Internet Centres are kindly asked to reshare the MOOC details through their own channels.

You may recall that, towards the end of last year, we issued a call for members for a new BIK Teacher Voice Panel to give input on ideas, initiatives and resources, so that we can better meet the needs of this stakeholder group. Panel members may also be called on periodically to provide representation at the BIK Advisory Board, the annual Safer Internet Forum (SIF), project focus groups and task forces (on topics such as youth consumer protection and age verification), and high-level consultations on online safety matters.

Last week, we organised a high-level focus group on the Digital Services Act (DSA) in schools on behalf of the EC as part of Safer Internet Day celebrations. The first BIK Teacher Voice panellists participated, giving excellent insights into the current opportunities and challenges in education. As we have more of these opportunities coming up, we are keen to build a wide and diverse teacher base to call upon. As such, Safer Internet Centres are kindly asked to reshare the call through their own channels.

Those interested in applying to join the panel should complete a short online form, including a brief motivation statement and a summary of relevant experience. Please note, to participate in this call, teachers and educators should:

• Be actively teaching in an EU country.
• Be actively teaching children and young people in pre-school, primary or secondary education (until the age of 18 years old).
• Have an awareness of online safety and media literacy issues.
• Be able to express ideas and opinions clearly in English in both written and spoken form.

Further information on the BIK Teacher Voice Panel is available here, where online applications can also be made.

The EU policy roundtable, hosted by the menABLE project, will bring together a diverse group of public and private stakeholders, including policymakers, representatives from civil society, academia, industries, education and young people to discuss priorities in tackling gender-based violence (GBV) online. The primary objective of the roundtable is to present and discuss the research findings of the menABLE Research Report – an empirical study on understanding and responding to gender-based violence online; and the Educational Toolbox concept - a plug-and-play game to prevent and combat gender-based violence online.

The roundtable will take place on Tuesday, 20 February 2024 in Brussels and online. For more information about the event, agenda, speakers’ bios and registration, please visit the menABLE website. 

The European Digital and Media Literacy Conference is taking place from Tuesday, 27 February 2024 to Friday, 1 March 2024 in Brussels. It puts the many faces of digital and media literacy in the European spotlight during the Belgian EU presidency. The conference is focused on showcasing and exchanging initiatives, tools, projects and practices that can be integrated into your own work or policy. Meet and connect with professionals from around the EU and from all policy levels. Let’s strengthen European cooperation and the future of Digital and Media Literacy! Attending the conference is free, but you need to apply to ensure a good European spread of participants. SIC representatives are warmly invited! 

More information is available from www.medialiteracymatters.eu. In case of questions, please contact Andy Demeulenaere (Coordinator at Mediawijs).

The next edition of the BIK bulletin will be published at the end of March with a focus on the global celebration of Safer Internet Day (SID) 2024, the latest developments with the Digital Services Act (DSA), and two new campaigns: AdWiseOnline - focusing on consumer and youth protection (see also above), and MediaSmartOnline - focusing on media literacy. As always, we also invite Safer Internet Centres (and their partners) to contribute with general articles on news, resources or events. The content deadline is COB on Monday, 11 March 2024 (or sooner if possible) and all contributions or queries should be addressed to content@betterinternetforkids.eu.

As a reminder, we generally suggest that articles should be 300 - 600 words in length (but longer focus pieces are fine too), along with copyright-cleared images/photographs/logos if appropriate. The BIK team reserves the right to edit contributions for house style etc., but we try to keep this to a minimum. See the content contribution guidelines here.

• Safer Internet Day 2024: joining together for a better internet all around the world
• And suddenly the money is gone: expensive TikTok matches and cash gifts (SIC DE)
• Keeping children and young people safe in virtual worlds
• The Better Internet for Kids annual report 2023 is out
• Happy Safer Internet Day 2024!
• Protecting YOU(th) against manipulative marketing practices online – campaign launch!

Remember to submit your public portal blog articles to the BIK content mailbox; they count towards your SIC’s lump sum mechanism (LSM) criteria.

Awareness community of practice

• SID celebration in Greece (SIC GR)

We hope that you are enjoying exploring the BIK platform. Please note, a BIK user guide is available to download from the BIK community (login first). In case of questions or issues when using any aspect of the BIK platform, please contact us using the contact link in the top right navigation area or email support@betterinternetforkids.eu.

IMPORTANT – if you have new starters who need to register for the platform, please direct them to www.betterinternetforkids.eu/register, in parallel with sending an email to support@betterinternetforkids.eu so that we can verify them and provide further instructions.

• It was great to see photos of Safer Internet Day celebrations across the network last week; thanks for sharing!

• Better Internet for Kids (BIK) public portal:
  www.betterinternetforkids.eu; #BIK; #BIKbulletin
• New BIK strategy (BIK+) on BIK portal:
  www.betterinternetforkids.eu/newbikstrategy; #BIKplus
• Safer Internet Forum (SIF) on BIK portal:
  www.betterinternetforkids.eu/sif;#SIF2023; #SIF2024, #SaferInternetForum
• BIK Policy Map on BIK portal:
  www.betterinternetforkids.eu/bikmap; #BIKPolicyMap
• Safer Internet Day (SID) minisite:
  www.saferinternetday.org; #SID2024; #SID2025; #SaferInternetDay
• Positive Online Content (POCC) minisite:
  www.positiveonlinecontentforkids.eu; #positivecontent; #PositiveOnlineContent; #POCC
• BIK Youth minisite:
  www.bikyouth.eu; #BIKyouth; #Pledge2Youth
• Child and youth consumer protection campaign (launched on Safer Internet Day 2024):
  #AdWiseOnline
• Project Facebook profiles:
  Insafe, Safer Internet Day, Insafe network closed Facebook group, INHOPE
• Project X (formerly Twitter) profiles:
  @insafenetwork; @safeinternetday; @BIK_youth; @inhope_pr
• Project LinkedIn profile:
  Better Internet for Kids