Insafe Weekly Update

The latest helpline quarterly report, based on data from Q4 (October-December 2023), has now been published and is available from the BIK community (login first). It also contains comparisons between 2022 and 2023. Please contact Karl if you have any questions or need any further information.

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. 

Register here for the training meeting (the link includes information on the draft agenda, as well as the networking dinner and other side events). We have extended registration until COB on Thursday, 7 March 2024, so please make sure you have registered by then. For any questions or further information on any aspect of the training meeting, please contact Karl. 

As usual, there will be a resource competition taking place as part of the upcoming training meeting. As this is a joint Insafe/INHOPE training meeting, all EC co-funded SICs and INHOPE hotlines are welcome to take part in the competition with the chance of winning €5,000 which must be used to make the resource accessible to the wider network. Typically, the funds would be used for translation and/or adaptation.   

The resource could be a video, brochure, book, research report, learning materials – anything that would be of interest and use to the wider network. The focus of this edition of the resource competition will be on children and young people aged 12 to 18. SICs and hotlines are invited to submit any resource which targets or is aimed at this particular group.   

Those wishing to take part should submit an entry using this short online form. Please remember that each country can only submit one resource. If you are unsure if a particular resource will fit the requirements, please contact Karl or Annarita to discuss.  

Please find below an outline of the upcoming deadlines related to the resource competition:

The next meeting of the helpline early warning group will take place on Wednesday, 6 March 2024 at the slightly later starting time of 14:15 CET. Use this link to join the meeting; for further information, please contact Karl.

Please note, this item relates to INHOPE work delivered under the BIK Phase 5 project.

On Thursday, 7 March 2024, INHOPE is hosting its second Expert Insights Webinar of 2024. AI-generated CSAM (child sexual abuse material) is an emerging form of abuse material that can be generated at the push of a button. It poses a new threat to online child safety, law enforcement agencies (LEAs), and hotlines all over the world. Join this webinar for an in-depth overview of the latest insights from the recent Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) report on AI abuse. Through case studies, Alex from IWF will shed light on analytical findings drawn from discussions between AI CSAM perpetrators on the dark web. Find out more and register via the INHOPE website. 

The new #MediaSmartOnline campaign launches on 8 March 2024 in three European countries: Czech Republic, Ireland, and Poland. The aim of the campaign is to raise awareness about all the media literacy actions and initiatives that are currently available for children and young people, and those who are working to upskill them (parents and caregivers, teachers and educators). It is rolled out in cooperation with the Insafe network of Safer Internet Centres and the Media & Learning Association.  

The campaign is first undergoing a pilot test phase in these three European countries, and will then scale for full roll-out next year, but SICs are already encouraged to use and disseminate the campaign's resources and messages. 

Discover more about the campaign on the BIK portal. 

Is there a particular media literacy initiative that you would like to be featured in the campaign? Please contact Annarita.  

A new BIK MOOC (massive open online course) will launch on Monday, 11 March 2024 for a duration of approximately 4 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.

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.

• Empowering internet safety: celebrating Safer Internet Day 2024 across Greece (SIC GR)
• Safer Internet Day 2024 in Hungary: phishing, online harassment, and artificial intelligence (SIC HR)
• Seran's journey to SIF as a BIK Youth Panellist (BIK Youth/SIC AT)

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

Helpline community of practice

• Teens ask more nuanced questions about online legality (SIC DK)
• Old technology offers new possibilities (SIC DK)

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.

• New youth study on "Beauty Ideals Online", highlighting the impact of digital media on young people's self-image (including infographic in EN) (SIC AT)
• Last call for print copies of the user-friendly DSA booklet in national languages

• 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 (launching 8 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