Insafe Weekly Update

Thanks to all SIC colleagues who attended the information session on DSA support tasks last Friday. During the session, the DSA team at the Commission and HaDEA explained the tasks to support the DSA and what is expected under the new grant agreements. Notes and slides from the session will be shared in the next Weekly Update.

The Netherlands ran a pilot on the implementation of the DSA and the role of a Safer Internet Centre (mainly focusing on the helpline, but also relevant for the hotline). Part of this pilot is described in a White Paper titled Advice on setting up an accessible reporting facility (available in the BIK community in EN; login first). Colleagues from SIC NL have given permission to share this with the network as a good practice example showing how the government, public sector and SIC can collaborate.

For further information, please contact Robbert at Offlimits.

The Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (DG EAC) recently published new guidelines for policymakers and educators on how to support well-being at school, with the aim of enhancing supportive learning environments for vulnerable learners, and promoting well-being and mental health at school.

These are the first outcomes of the activity of the European Commission's expert group which is part of the Pathways to School Success, a flagship initiative of the European Education Area. These experts include researchers, academics, teachers and school principals, teacher trainers, and school and child psychologists.

The aim of the expert group is to develop evidence-based policy recommendations and guidelines to address the well-being challenges young people and teachers are facing. Among these recommendations, the Insafe network of Safer Internet Centres is mentioned, alongside the BIK portal, the Safer Internet Forum, and the booklet The Digital Services Act (DSA) explained: Measures to protect children and young people online.

In addition, a webinar, organised by the European Toolkit for Schools, will take place this week on Wednesday, 26 June 2024 at 16:00 CEST - Well-being without overload: Integrating self-care in teaching practices.

A final reminder that we invite Safer Internet Centre colleagues to share the following information with their youth contacts:

Are you between 15 and 29 years old? If so, the European Commission are keen to hear your views on certain aspects of the EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027.

The strategy aims to encourage young people to participate in democratic life, support social and civic engagement, and ensure that all young people have the resources they need to play an active part in society.

Your answers will be included in the next EU Youth Report on the progress of the strategy during the years 2022-2024. They will complement the results of other consultations to provide a better picture of young people’s views and how to give young people a stronger voice in EU policymaking.

Please share your feedback via the online survey by Sunday, 30 June 2024. The survey is available in all EU languages.

In case of further questions, please contact EAC-YOUTH@ec.europa.eu.

One of the BIK Phase 5 project activities is to carry out a European Union-wide evaluation of the BIK+ strategy every two years. The evaluation involves consultations with various stakeholders, including young people and children, parents and carers, teachers, and expert stakeholders. Ghent University – Research Group: Law & Technology, acting in a subcontractor capacity, is developing a base research methodology for consultations with young people and children (over 12 years of age). 

As indicated in previous Insafe Steering Committee exchanges, we intend to actively involve SICs in the BIK+ strategy evaluation going forward, given their instrumental position, relevant expertise and access to key national stakeholders. More information on this will follow soon.   

At this stage, EUN is launching a call for expressions of interest from expert organisations to organise consultations with children and young people younger than 12 years of age and from various vulnerable backgrounds. 

Please help us promote the open call by sharing it with any relevant expert organisations in your network. The open call is available here. 

In case of questions, please reach out to BIKevaluation@eun.org. 

Thanks to those who participated in the virtual worlds session last week. We are currently preparing some notes, and this will also be the focus topic for the June 2024 edition of the BIK bulletin, being published this Friday, 28 June 2024. Read the BIK bulletin here or subscribe to receive it directly to your mailbox.

Many thanks to those people who attended the meeting on accessibility last week. You can find a report from the meeting along with the slides used and a link to a recording in the BIK community (login first). For any further information please contact Karl.

Please note, the following item relates to wider INHOPE work. It is not part of the BIK Phase 5 project and is provided here for information purposes only.

What is needed to reshape the workflow of law enforcement who are processing the continuously growing number of NCMEC reports? At this year’s AviaTor Forum, taking place in Brussels, Belgium on Wednesday, 26 June 2024, INHOPE aims to answer that question by focusing on innovation, legislation, and cooperation. Law enforcement, industry, legislators, trust and safety teams, tech, academics, NGOs and hotline analysts are invited to register for this in-person event. Advance registration is essential.

Learn more about the AviaTor Forum here. 

An online meeting with WebGroup (who own and operate the adult site XVideos) will take place on Wednesday, 3 July 2024 at 11:00 CEST. The meeting will be an opportunity to hear more about the safety and privacy tools that they have in place as well as reporting routes and how to flag problematic content; join the meeting using this link. For further information, please contact Karl. 

The next meeting of the helpline early warning group will take place on Monday, 22 July 2024 at 11:00 CEST. If you need any further information, please contact Karl.

Please note this item relates to wider INHOPE work not linked with BIK.

The seventh annual INHOPE Summit will take place in hybrid form on 8-9 October 2024. This year's summit will explore two critical topics: our society's understanding and awareness of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and the troubling trend of CSAM commercialisation. 

As the spread of CSAM online reaches unprecedented levels, reporting becomes increasingly vital. Yet, we must confront significant challenges in society's understanding of CSAM and address its economic ties. Join INHOPE as they tackle these pressing issues head-on.  

Read more in the article on the INHOPE website, or discover more on INHOPE events more generally.

Safer Internet Centres are invited to participate in theAdWiseOnline consultation phaseto share their insights based on their knowledge and experience with issues related to online consumer protection for children and youth.  

This new BIK initiative aims to design and run awareness campaigns to empower children against manipulative digital marketing practices. In this context, a pilot phase of the AdWiseOnline campaign was launched this year.During this phase, a research report on Manipulative digital marketing practices targeting children and young people was published. Additionally, materials for young people were created to simplify the complex terminology of digital marketing and the legal framework of consumer rights: the AdWiseOnline guide for young people to outsmart online ads and marketing traps and the AdWiseOnline video.  

To scope the next steps and further develop and rollout the campaign, with the most impactful reach and results for the target audiences, we seek your feedback!Please fill in the AdWiseOnline surveyby COB today - Monday, 24 June 2024 and contact Inna for any questions/requests. 

As part of BIK youth consultation activities, we are looking for 5-10 young people to share their views on manipulative digital marketing practices that will feed into campaign materials for the full rollout of the AdWiseOnline campaign.    
 
The consultation is expected to cover:  

• Understanding what young people already know, and any gaps in knowledge.
• Analysing existing resources and assessing their usefulness.
• Gathering feedback on the preferred format of additional resources to better understand the topic.
• Exploring expectations regarding the support they would want to receive from their parents or teachers on this topic. 

We would like to meet with the group once during the summer (in the period between 1-16 August 2024) to introduce the initiative, explain what is expected, and gather immediate ideas on the above points. Following this initial meeting, young people (who are interested and available to continue collaboration) may be invited to contribute further during the August to October timeframe. This could include giving interviews, participating in podcasts, narrating videos, validating content, and co-designing resources. 
 
Thank you for issuing the call for interest at your national level; please contact Inna and Chiara by close of business on Friday, 19 July 2024, with any youth nominations.

• Romanian Safer Internet Centre helpline (SIC RO)
• Empowering youth online: the Ora de Net initiative (SIC RO)
• What parents should know about VR gaming (SIC DE)
• Protecting vulnerable groups online from harmful content – new (technical) approaches: Insafe delegation participates in EuroDIG 2024 (Insafe EuroDIG delegation)
• Age limit on social media platforms (SIC RO)

Please submit your public portal blog articles to the BIK content mailbox. 

Remember, article contributions to the BIK portal will count towards your SIC’s lump sum mechanism (LSM) criteria for 2024.

Helpline case studies

• This week, SIC IE has uploaded various case studies on topics such as sextortion, porn addiction, and pop-up images.

Awareness community of practice

• Blackout challenge/choking challenge on TikTok (SIC AT)
• "watchpeopledie" and other horrible sites (SIC AT)
• Think before you click: A campaign on peer violence and hate speech online (SIC SI)

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.

Remember, contributions to the BIK community will count towards your SIC’s lump sum mechanism (LSM) criteria for 2024.

• 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):
  www.betterinternetforkids.eu/adwiseonline; #AdWiseOnline
• Media literacy campaign (launched in March 2024):
  www.betterinternetforkids.eu/mediasmartonline; #MediaSmartOnline
• 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