Better Internet for Kids

During the months of April - June 2021, we gradually published the motto of 7 members of our Youth Panel on the Instagram profile @bezpecnenanetu. The aim was to present our initiative as a part of the Safer Internet Centre CZ project and to further publish young people's views on today's Internet. In addition, we published where the panelists come from, what school they are studying and what their interests are. Their varied after school activities can also serve as an inspiration for today's youngsters, how to spend their free time meaningfully.

The Media Council for Children and Young People and Save the Children Denmark have collaborated with the SIC DK National Youth Panel to create this teaching material on online communities. It has been created for the 7th-9th grade in Danish schools.

The goal of the teaching material is to help students recognize and understand dynamics in online communities, so that they can better contribute in making healthier communities and react and ask for help, if the communities become unhealthy.

Take a critical look at the image is a course on image analysis for elementary school pupils. This course is based on the work of Rose-Marie-Farinella, an elementary school teacher, specialised in fake news analysis.
This course allows to acquire all the reflexes to decrypt images : source, framing, edit, optical illusion, caption.
The objectives are:
-To learn how to look at an image with a critical eye.
-To learn how to observe an image to contextualise it.
-To understand that an image, by its composition and framing, can influence the message delivered.

Decrypt online information is a course from InfoHunter, a program aimed at high school students from 16 to 18, to teach them how to decrypt online information and separate fact from fiction. This course is based on a false documentary made by Thomas Huchon, a reporter and a specialist of the web, fake news and conspiracy theories.
The objectives are :
-To display knowledge on a particular subject
-To learn how to verify and cross the sources of information in order to understand and take over the journalistic approach

Online, it is not always clear with whom we are writing, for example on social media or in gaming chat. This can be fatal, especially for children and young people, because not all chat contacts just want to talk casually. Initially trusting conversations can develop into dangerous situations. Sexual harassment and abuse often happen online and are usually initiated in the chats of popular platforms and networks. This poster can be used to sensitise children and young people to warning signals that something is wrong.

Cyberbullying can be seen as a form or extension of bullying, perpetrated via digital media, and is also an aggressive, intentional, and persistent behaviour. It can happen anywhere, at any time, and all the time.
While in bullying the aggressor is known, in cyberbullying the aggressor is often anonymous, there is a physical distance, the aggression comes through mobile phones, social networks and messages, which contributes to the complexity of the phenomenon and to the aggravation of the emotional consequences for the victims.

Cybercrime includes various practices such as the theft of personal data, the installation of viruses and malware, the creation of fake profiles on the Internet (for example on social networks or to commit fraud), online fraud or cyberbullying.
One of the main difficulties in combating cybercrime is its cross-border nature. In many situations, it is very difficult to identify the origin of the crime and its perpetrators.

Hate speech is based on hatred and includes "all forms of expression which propagate, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred based on intolerance" (Council of Europe). Hate speech constitutes a violation of Human Rights.
Hate speech can have an online and an offline dimension, and in both cases, it can have serious consequences for the lives of people who are victims of this type of action.

While the platforms that enable audio and video communication are nothing new, they have taken on another dimension in 2020 with the pandemic situation experienced around the world.

On February 9, Safer Internet Day was celebrated in Lithuania, as in many other countries of the world. On this day and throughout the week, various events took place in educational institutions to draw public attention to current digital challenges, promoting safer use of the internet and digital technologies, especially for children and young people. Prienai "Revuona" school on February 12 held a debate on the topic "Should compulsory media literacy classes be provided in Lithuanian schools?"