Safer Internet Day - Pitching too young ?
Today is Safer Internet Day, but is the message right? Should it be pitched at young people or their parents and other adults ? Ian Douglas of the Telegraph argues that the audience needs to be thought through more carefully.
Ask a parent if they’re worried about what their kids get up to online and of course they’ll say yes. Who wouldn’t worry about their precious little ones adrift in a sea of porn and paedophiles? Safer Internet Day aims to teach good practice to web users, especially when it comes to social media. Think before you post, they say, with a funny little cartoon of a computer mouse uploading naked pictures of itself and getting laughed at around the world. No, really.
Despite the subject matter being a bit odd, trying to teach children about the dangers of life online is becoming a fairly common thing for public campaigning groups to grapple with, along with the dangers of house fires at night and what it’s like to have a stroke (a bit like a fire on your forehead, judging from the adverts). The UK Council for Child Internet Safety was set up in 2007 following the excellent report by Dr Tanya Byron to implement its proposals, and has launched a new campaign, Click Clever Click Safe, to coincide with Safer Internet Day.
Like the materials for Safer Internet Day itself, Click Clever Click Safe pitches its message squarely at the children with a three-step action plan for encountering inappropriate material online (Zip it, block it, flag it) and some eye-catching cartoon logos.
Laudable as it might be for Government to get involved with safety campaigns, this strays from one of the main messages of the Byron report, that it’s the education of parents and their ability to look after their child online that is of supreme importance.
Read the full story at The Telegraph