IGF 2024 Day 0 Event #10 First Aid Online: Making the Difference for Children

The new European strategy for a Better Internet for Kids (BIK+ Strategy), adopted by the European Commission in May 2022, aims to provide a delicate balance between digital participation, empowerment, and protection of children in the digital environment. BIK+ Strategy comes as an adaptation to the 2012 BIK Strategy, following a decade where technological developments exceeded any expectation. The new strategy, adopted after a long consultation process, aims to place children at the forefront of developments/ decisions that will be adopted by key stakeholders and the industry that concern the digital environment in the years to come. Children, as the digital citizens of the future, and being raised in a digital environment deserve to have a saying to what concerns the developments, protective measures, and their rights, and to shape the world they will live in. Based on the above critical and thoughtful elements, the BIK+ Strategy places emphasis to the following three pillars: 1. Provide children with a secure digital environment that safeguards them from harmful and illegal online content, conduct, contact, and risks, while also enhancing their well-being by ensuring age-appropriate content and respecting their best interests. 2. Empower all children, including those in vulnerable situations, with the skills and competencies required to make sound decisions and express themselves safely and responsibly in the online environment. 3. Encourage active participation by respecting children's opinions and incorporating more child-led activities in the digital environment to promote innovative and creative safe digital experiences. Against this background, European Safer Internet Centres (co-funded by the European Commission) as part of the Insafe-INHOPE network aim to further implement the objectives of the BIK+ Strategy at national and regional level. On one hand SICs are invited to develop raising awareness initiatives and pedagogical resources and also celebrate the Safer Internet Day. On the other hand, they are putting policies into practice and implementing helplines which are intended to be private confidential and non-judgemental and can be contacted for free from anywhere in each State Member. These 24-hour national listening services for all children and young people (or even for parents and teachers) provides help, support and counselling services giving them means of talking through their queries or worries with trained staff. The Helplines aims to empower, protect and support young people whatever their situation, from cyberbullying, family and relationships, to education, online safety and rights. Often, child helplines are a child or young person’s first point of contact with child protection services, and the most trusted and accessible gateway for them to find much needed further support. According to the BIK+ Strategy the EU co-funded Safer Internet helplines and hotlines should continue to assist the public, in particular children, when confronted with harmful and illegal content. If granted the status of ‘trusted flaggers’ under the conditions of the DSA, they will be able to contribute to a swifter assessment of and action upon notifications of illegal content online. On the other hand, the EU co-funded SIC helplines collaborate in the harmonization of the 116 111 in the sense that will addresses cyberbullying. To give further insight into this work, during this Day 0 event participants will hear from representatives of Insafe and 2 European Safer Internet Centres (from Belgium and Poland) who will present their national best practices on child and youth helplines. The moderator representing Insafe will start by contextualising the work of helplines within the Insafe network, followed by the presentation of helpline best practices by the Safer Internet Centre representatives. To complement and illustrate the work done, an intervention will be given by a BIK Youth Ambassador from Portugal, representing a wider youth network of 40+ Ambassadors from across Europe. The session will end with a discussion and Q&A session, co-facilitated by the onsite and online moderator, to allow onsite and online participants to interact with the speakers.

References: 

• https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/strategy-better-inter…
• https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/european-strategy-bett…
• https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/digital-services-act-…
• Home | Better Internet for Kids
• Safer Internet Centres network

1) How will you facilitate interaction between onsite and online speakers and attendees? One on-site moderator and one online moderator will jointly host this Day 0 event. The online moderator will build the bridge between the online attendees (and online speakers if applicable) and the on-site moderator, alerting her each time a question/comment is made by the online attendees. Moreover, the online moderator, will take care of written responses while the session is running, making sure questions/comments are responded to “on the go”, while also posting useful links/references in the chat for the online attendees to consult.

2) How will you design the session to ensure the best possible experience for online and onsite participants? The Day 0 event will be supported by Power Point presentations, each speaker (present on-site) will have a short slide deck prepared to support his/her intervention. This will make the presentation more accessible to both on-site and online participants. After each presentation, a few minutes will be given to the on-site and online audience for Q/A. The on-site moderator together with the online moderator will facilitate the Q/A making sure questions and comments from on-site and online are equally considered.

3) Please note any complementary online tools/platforms you plan to use to increase participation and interaction during the session. Social media (e.g X and LinkedIn) will be used to boost visibility of the session and its outcomes.