Safer Internet Day 2017 is being celebrated on a theme which charges all and sundry to be the change needed to promote a better internet for all. This global clarion call continues to present opportunities that are synonymous with encouraging digizens to build a better internet. The Ghana Internet Safety Foundation (GISF) has always held onto the belief that a safer internet is a better internet and we are helping to make sure that this become a reality for internet users in Ghana through the Child Online Protection Campaign.
As part of the activities earmarked to celebrate the day, some members of TeamGISF reached out to students of the the Mancell Girls' Vocational and Technical institute. The interactions bothered on on how to use the internet wisely in order to avoid being victims of malicious activities such as sakawa, sexting, revenge pornography and sextape leakages. Such activities have spiraled in recent times with no end in sight. During the Q&A session, TeamGISF shared with them educational resources on social media safety from Facebook Inc., the need to say NO to sexting as well as insights about the end-to-end encryption, a recent privacy feature on the Whatsapp messaging platform. On our social media platforms, we discussed the day with, what it means and how Tweeps and Facebookers can get involved in uniting for a better, kinder internet using the hashtag #GHSID2017, #SID2017 and #SaferInternetDay. We shared social media posts, graphics and messages from our partners Facebook and the National Cyber Security Alliance. It was interesting to note that #SID2017 was trending across the globe.
Our partnership with Facebook is to ensure that people connect on social media in a safe, secure, respectful environment. We will work together to come up with innovate products and tools to enable us empower the family to stay in control, support each other in terms of privacy and security online. Furthermore, our engagement within the Insafe/INHOPE network provides a global platform to share our Ghanaian experience relative to prospects and challenges in our goal to promote internet safety. The need to produce content which would facilitate our outreach activities informed our collaboration with the National Cyber security alliance in the United States.
Our focus this year would be to involve the family as a change agent in protecting children and young people online. The responsible usage of mobile technology and the Internet by young users remains a great challenge for many communities in Ghana. More often than not, we find that children tend to be more Internet-savvy than their parents who after purchasing the computers and smartphones do not go a step further to monitor how well they use these gadgets. This is due to they not having the requisite know-how and tools. Parents thereby have little or no motivation to be involved in issues related to mobile technology and internet. Ironically, that is where children spend an enormous amount of time.
We aim to engage the family (parents and guardians) to raise awareness about online safety issues and participate in events and activities right across the country for a better internet where young people and children will be safe. Together with parents and guardians, we will look at avenues to maintain an open and honest dialogue with children about their online lives, support them with their personal development online and help them to deal with any concerns or issues, seek out positive opportunities to engage with children online, and help their children to find and use good quality digital resources. We believe the family can also help to respond to the negative by staying engaged with their child’s online activity (as appropriate to their age), by modelling positive online behaviors themselves, and by also reporting any inappropriate or illegal content they find. Furthermore, we seek to encourage children to open up their digital life to their parents as an effective way to share the herculean responsibility of online safety. We aim to relieve the burden on children and the youth vis-a-vis the changing challenges of their digital existence.
This is an open invitation to all stakeholders to join us on this quest to minimize incidents of malicious online activities in the country. The family as a change agent with national and international activists will ensure we proactively deal with malicious online activities particularly those that promote identity theft, tax identity theft, fraud and phishing, sexting etc. Together, can positively influence this and future generations to be informed and responsible users of digital technology.
Let us be the change: unite for a better internet!
Kwasi Mensah Nyarko
Research and Policy Analyst
Ghana Internet Safety Foundation
[email protected]
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