In support of the G20 Stay Safe Online Campaign, Meta today announced its partnership with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). As part of the collaboration with MeitY, Meta will develop and disseminate beneficial materials in a variety of Indian languages via various channels in order to raise awareness of online safety.
The G20 Stay Secure Online resources will address topics like combating online scams, how to report objectionable information, how to stay safe when interacting online, and more. At a time when India is serving as the G20 presidency and is on the verge of becoming a $ trillion digital economy, this strategic alliance will benefit not only India’s current Internet users but also the country’s fast growing number of new Internet users.
Speaking on the collaboration, Akash Tripathi, CEO of MyGov, said: “Under Prime Minister Modi’s vision for India’s Techade, we are witnessing tremendous digital adoption and with this growth, there is a need to create simple-to-access tools and services to protect customers from rising cybercrimes. In this year of India’s G20 Presidency, MeitY has created a Stay Safe online campaign. We are pleased that IT businesses like Meta are leading the way in supporting the government’s objective of creating an inclusive digital space free of serious online dangers.
The #DigitalSuraksha campaign, which Meta also launched on Safer Online Day, expands on the company’s initiatives to provide a more secure and inclusive internet for everyone. In order to promote digital literacy to people in Delhi, the initial phase of #DigitalSuraksha includes a partnership with Delhi Police. The present phase of #DigitalSuraksha also entails a plethora of initiatives to enable digital education and literacy across youth wellbeing, child safety, combating disinformation, as well as the general education of users towards numerous safety features and resources available across Meta platforms.
“The G20 Presidency opens up a great opportunity for India to design and create an ever-inclusive Internet model for the world, and we are excited to partner with the Ministry of Electronic and Information Technology in this endeavour,” said Natasha Jog, Head, Public Policy, Instagram and Policy Programs, Facebook India (Meta). We will support the government’s campaign by giving users the knowledge, tools, and resources they need to defend themselves in this quickly changing digital environment in order to build an ecosystem that is secure and empowering in order to create a $1 trillion digital economy.
Education in Digital Literacy
In order to ensure online safety, law enforcement organisations are a crucial partner. As part of its #DigitalSuraksha campaign, Meta will collaborate with the Delhi Police on a 2-month-long initiative to teach digital literacy to 10,000 students at different schools and institutions in Delhi. Additionally, Meta and the Delhi Police will work together to develop materials aimed at educating users on how to guard themselves from online and digital scams. As part of this collaboration, Meta will also provide training on its many safety tools to Delhi police officers.
The #DigitalSuraksha campaign is represented by the Digital Nagrik Pledge, which was also introduced by Meta today and calls on citizens of India to act responsibly online (Nagriks). The Digital Nagrik Pledge will help the Indian Government’s goal of ensuring an open, safe, trusted, and responsible internet by building on Meta’s cooperation with CBSE to give a Digital Citizenship course to 10 million students and 1 lac teachers. Over the course of the following year, the campaign seeks to recruit 1 million participants who will promise to adopt safe digital citizenship.
Increasing consumer understanding
Meta has also conducted a number of consumer awareness projects on the tools and resources available for individuals to be secure, underscoring the crucial significance of educating users.
Building on their collaboration with Delhi Police, Meta will wrap one train on the Yellow line of the Delhi Metro for a month in order to inform passengers about the safety resources accessible on Meta’s platforms. A QR code will connect commuters to Meta’s safety resources.
A fresh “Help safeguard children. A campaign called “Don’t Share. Don’t Comment. Report.” was also started with the goal of discouraging the spreading of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and promoting the reporting of such information instead. The ad will inform users of the negative effects of CSAM and how it affects the victim. It will also exhort anyone who comes across offensive videos or pictures of minors to protect the victim by reporting it right away to Facebook. The new initiative builds on Meta’s previous “Report it, don’t spread it” campaign.
The emphasis of this year’s Safer Internet Day topic is on the importance of talking to young children about life online in order to support them. UnGap was created by Meta with the goal of supporting and promoting meaningful dialogues between parents and kids about important issues including social media use, mental health, and digital wellbeing. UnGap is a chat show with six episodes that pairs famous parents and kids. Starring parents and kids include, among others, actors Sheeba Chaddha and daughter Noor, Ahsaas Channa and mother Kulbir Badesron, comedian Abhishek Kumar and father Sundar Baalaji, and businessman Roshan Abbas and daughter Ayatal Abbas.
Additionally, Yuvaa launched a short video campaign to raise awareness of “advice for fighting misinformation.” Six straightforward recommendations and techniques for combating and recognising disinformation are presented in six 15-second campaign videos that are available in Hinglish.
Over the course of the year, Meta will continue to expand its #DigitalSuraksha campaign. These will be designed to educate users, raise awareness, and advance India’s vision for digital inclusion and progress in order to reach a bigger group of users.
