Andrew Williams, UK Safer Internet Centre and SWGfL Online Safety Consultant, gives advice on how to keep your school safe from email scam.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8239594 https://www.saferinternet.org.uk/blog/think-check-check-again-how-protect-your-school-email-scams
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Will Gardner, CEO of Childnet and UKSIC director, looks at the ways in which educators can harness the power of young people in online safety education.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8239594 https://www.saferinternet.org.uk/blog/harness-power-youth-voice-online-education
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From bloggers and ‘Instagram stars’ to celebrities, there are a lot of people on Instagram sharing sponsored posts or product endorsements. In this blog we share our top tips for being a critical thinker when it comes to advertising on Instagram.
Advertisements on Instagram can appear in many different places, from posts in your newsfeed to videos or pictures on Instagram Stories. You can spot these adverts by looking out for the ‘Sponsored’ or ‘ad’ label on the image or video.
However, it can be harder to spot if someone you follow has been paid to promote or endorse a particular product, service or place.
On Instagram it’s not unusual to see your favourite celebrity talking about their new makeup, clothes or holiday, but how do you know if they’ve been paid for these posts? We’ve looked at some easy ways to spot advertisements on Instagram.
Our top tips:
Although this isn’t always the case, one of the easiest ways to spot sponsorship is through the hashtags used on the post. Many celebrities will use the hashtags #spon, #sp or #ad to show that they have been paid to promote a product as well as the more obvious #Sponsored or #Promotion.
There has also recently been a rise in celebrities using other, more subtle hashtags when they post about a products, these include:
Always think about what is in the picture: is a product the main focus of a picture or is it simply coincidental? Think about why a celebrity would have posted a picture of an item and if the style of photo is in keeping with the content that they usually post.
A lot of celebrities are sponsored to promote particular clothing items or brands, these photos are usually solely about this item, either a close up of it, or a full length image tagging the company.
On mobile Instagram, only the first three lines of text are usually shown. By clicking ‘read more’ at the bottom of a post you can check if the celerity has posted an indication that they have been sponsored further down in the post.
Who? Who posted the image? Are they reliable and what other content do they usually post? Are they coming from a particular perspective? Think about what they gain from posting this image.
What? What did they say about the image? Could the image have been edited or show a limited perspective?
Why? Why did they post it? How did they want you to feel, or what did they want you to do?
How? How is the post written? If a celebrity thanks a brand for a product, then this is usually an initial sign that the celebrity has been paid to promote the product.
Talk to your children about who they follow and what they like to look at on Instagram. Try our conversation starters to start a discussion with your children about what they like to do online.
More generally, talk to your children about advertising on Instagram and on other social media sites they use. Discuss why someone might promote a particular product and make them aware that promoted content exists.
The Childnet Trust Me resource is great for starting to think about critical thinking online. http://www.childnet.com/resources/trust-me
SWGfL, a partner in the UK Safer Internet Centre, has launched a new search engine for Key Stage 2 children to use at school and at home.
After a 18 months of development, the Online Safety experts at SWGfL are proud to announce the launch of our new child friendly search engine, Swiggle.org.uk.
Building effective online search skills in children and young people is vital in ensuring learners get to the information they need for their studies. Generic search engines are aimed at a wide audience, and are designed to service requests for anything thrown at them, inappropriate for children or not.
We have redeveloped Swiggle from the ground up to provide the best online safety and user experience for young people as they take their first steps in searching the internet and towards independence.
Effective searching needs to start with fundamental and effective search terms without the distractions of advertising, paid-for search ranking and inappropriate content. Large search engines were not designed with children in mind; young children need a “sandpit” to allow those skills to develop and flourish.
With this is mind we have designed Swiggle to offer a simple and friendly user experience to our young audience, the interface is clean and uncluttered, the search results big and visual, with thumbnails for each result when available.
We are also introducing image search for the first time, without the long screed of thumbnails that can often return highly inappropriate images.
As a registered charity, here to promote the safe use of technology within education, we are in the unique position of being able to offer Google powered search results without any advertising, unlike other commercial alternatives.
We believe this is an important feature of Swiggle to enable young people to search the internet without any commercial compromise or distractions.
Ofsted in their seminal “Safe Use on New Technologies” 2010 report found that “Pupils in the schools that had ‘managed’ systems had better knowledge and understanding of how to stay safe than those in schools with ‘locked down’ systems. Pupils were more vulnerable overall when schools used locked down systems because they were not given enough opportunities to learn how to assess and manage risk for themselves”.
We know that technical barriers on their own are not an effective solution for encouraging safer use; we have to enable young children to discover, test and fail constructively in a safe environment.
Swiggle enables searching across the entire internet, and thus cannot guarantee that inappropriate results will not appear; however, it is designed to mitigate this risk as far as is possible through a number of custom mechanisms, as well as providing simple tools to enable young people to deal with any content they feel is unsuitable for them.
We check all search queries before they are executed. For example you cannot search for “knife”, although you can search for “knife and fork”.
We have also worked on ways you could trick the system into returning inappropriate results such as entering the search with multiple letters in place of a single letter - try entering “Kniife” into other child friendly search engines and see what you find (particularly with image searches!)
Our Online Safety experts have curated a list of banned search terms to provide a safer environment for young users, blocking or redirecting inappropriate searches.
All Swiggle searches are filtered by Google SafeSearce. At a top level this filters out adult and and NSFW (not safe for work) content.
The search results that Swiggle returns are focussed on education, so expect the results to be geared towards the sort of subjects that children learn as part of the Key Stage 2 curriculum.
After finding a search result on Swiggle, or any other search engine, it is perfectly normal to click through a few pages, perhaps even go to other websites that are linked from the first. Depending on the filtering you have in place, this could lead to young people accessing content that they may find upsetting or know is not suitable for them.
We have built the Swiggle Screen Cover widget to help in these situations by providing a button that can be clicked to cover any unsuitable content, the SwiggleBot (more on him later!) then tells the child to get an adult, who can then see details of the page that was accessed, and report it to their system administrator (in the case of schools), and also to us if the page was found through Swiggle. These are the first steps in self-regulation for young users placing the adult at the heart of the conversation and encouraging children to “take control” of what they experience online.
Our SwiggleBot is always on hand to help young people find what they are looking for. Just click the bot to activate, and it can help with tasks such as learning to enter more effective search queries and reporting pages, you can even use it to customise Swiggle!
Why not make Swiggle the default search engine in your school? Or at home?
We have developed a browser extension to enable you to make Swiggle the default search engine as well as install the Screen Cover Widget. It is currently available for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
This article was originally posted in the SWGfL Magazine.
Childnet, a partner in the UK Safer Internet Centre, has launched educational resources as part of Project deSHAME today. These resources aim to increase reporting of online sexual harassment among minors and improve multi-sector cooperation in preventing and responding to this behaviour.
New educational resources, ‘Step Up, Speak Up!’ have been published today by children’s charity Childnet as part of a Europe-wide project to tackle online sexual harassment carried out by young people. Defined as ‘unwanted sexual conduct on any online platform’, online sexual harassment amongst young people has been an increasingly present issue in schools and local communities. These freely available resources will aim to:
The resources are launched at a moment when government policy is looking to address the online issues young people are facing, with the upcoming DCMS and Home Office Online Harms White Paper soon to be published. The Department of Education have also released their statutory guidance on Relationship and Sex Education which will be mandatory for all schools from September 2020.
Will Gardner, CEO of Childnet, and coordinator of Project deSHAME said:
“Digital technology plays a central role in young people’s lives but it has opened the door for a range of new forms of sexual harassment, making education about these issues more crucial than ever. We have been working collaboratively with children and young people, teachers and law enforcement, as well as industry to develop effective preventative programmes and to inform more effective responses to this issue.
We know that technology has a positive and central part to play in young people’s lives, and we know that they feel passionately about being part of the solution. That’s why we are calling on everyone to ‘Step Up and Speak Up’ when they see sexual harassment happening online.”
Amidst growing concerns of sexual harassment in schools, research conducted with 1,559 UK teens found alarming prevalence of young people targeting their peers with online sexual harassment.
Over half of UK respondents aged 13-17 years (51%) said they have witnessed people their age circulating nude or nearly nude images of someone they know, also referred to as ‘revenge porn’.
2 in 5 (39%) have witnessed people setting up a ‘bait out’ page or group for people in their school to share sexual gossip or images.
1 in 10 have received sexual threats online, including rape threats, from people their age in the last year.
Almost a quarter of UK teens (23%) have witnessed young people secretly taking sexual images of someone and sharing them online, also referred to as ‘creep shots’ or ‘upskirting’.
23% of UK respondents aged 13-17 years have received unwanted sexual messages and images in the last year, with girls being significantly more likely to experience this (31%) compared to boys (11%).
As one girl aged 17 commented:
“[We need to learn what] “sexual harassment’ really is – in regard to being online. Everyone gets comments about being ‘hot’ and what would be classed as sexual comments, but no one really knows where the limit is; no one is aware of what classes as harassment – comments, photos – revolving around sexualising bodies. Then once we can identify it, we can then be taught how to deal with it.”
Using the findings of quantitative and qualitative research, and working alongside both young people and educators, the resources will give young people the opportunity to explore their own attitudes and opinions, and to discuss ways to challenge unacceptable online behaviour. The reporting process is a key theme that runs throughout the toolkit, and the different reporting options are explored and clarified. Opportunities for adaptation and extension are provided for all activities, plus additional information for educators to understand the background of the issues at hand, and guidance on discussing these with students. The toolkit includes:
The project has piloted the resources with schools in the UK with the following findings, which can be found in full at www.deshame.eu:
As one boy aged 14-15 years said:
“I like these lessons because…this is important, this is real life, people do go through these sorts of issues and there are many other subjects and issues like this that don’t get addressed. The more that people get into the real word and they’ll be like ‘oh no I never learnt about this…’”
This article was originally posted on the Childnet website.
Are you confident you can tell what is illegal content online? And that you can rightly tell the age of young people in images online? Do you think reporting child sexual abuse material online makes a difference?
Over three-quarters of men (and 36% of women) in the UK watch porn online,* and some of them may accidentally see upsetting content online. But do people know where to turn if they stumble upon criminal content?
A recent survey conducted by the agency Ipsos Mori has revealed that young men aged 18-24 surveyed are more likely than average to hold misconceptions about what content is illegal online.* For instance, 30% young men do not identify it as illegal to download, view or share sexual images of children when they appear without nudity; 27% don’t think it’s illegal if the children appear to agree to take part in the picture; and 26% of young men don’t identify it as illegal if the image appears to be self-made by the child. Young men are more likely than other adults of all ages to not identify the illegality of these situations.
The IWF, a partner in the UK Safer Internet Centre, wanted to test these results and went out on the streets of major cities in the UK to ask young people several questions related to child sexual abuse imagery online, specifically:
In this video we ask young men if they think that sexual abuse content that’s already online causes continued harm to the children featured and this is what they said…
“Looking at sexual content of under 18s online is not a victimless crime. Behind every picture is a child who’s being abused or coerced into doing something at the hands of an adult. Once online, the pictures can be shared globally within seconds. The harm caused can last a lifetime,” says Tink Palmer, Marie Collins Foundation CEO.
We also asked people if they knew how to report sexual images they think may be of someone under 18, as research found that although two thirds of men say they would report a sexual image of a child if they accidentally saw one, almost half (49%) don’t know where or how to report.
Reporting is easy, quick and anonymous. You can report any sexual images or videos of someone you think might be under 18 to the Internet Watch Foundation at https://report.iwf.org.uk/en
Have you ever thought whether reporting an image would make any difference?
Reporting does make a difference. Just one report could help safeguard a victim. IWF’s latest figures confirm 105,047 webpages showing the sexual abuse and sexual torture of children have been removed from the internet in one year. These webpages each contained up to thousands of images and videos showing the sexual abuse of children. It amounted to millions of horrific images.
So remember, if you ever see sexual images of children online, do the right thing and report it to the IWF. Reporting only takes a few minutes and can be done completely anonymously. We don’t need your details, just your help.
Watch the full five videos on IWF’s YouTube channel to find the answers to all these questions.
The videos were produced as part of a campaign in partnership with the UK Government, the Marie Collins Foundation and The Internet Watch Foundation to empower young men to navigate the internet safely by making sure they know what to do if they ever stumble across sexual images or videos of someone they think might be under 18.
If you want to know more about the campaign, visit @IWFhotline or @MCFcharityUK on Twitter or go to https://iwf.org.uk/onesimplereport for more info.
The IWF helps victims of child sexual abuse worldwide by identifying and removing online images and videos of their abuse. It works in partnership to disrupt offenders who use the online environment to distribute and share these disturbing images and videos. The IWF is also part of the UK Safer Internet Centre, alongside Childnet International and SWGfL, working together to make the internet safer for everyone to use.
This article was originally published on the IWF website.
* Research conducted by the British Sex Survey carried out by The Observer.
** Online survey conducted by the independent research agency Ipsos Mori. The survey was conducted between the 11 and 30 April 2018 with a quota sample of 1,953 participants – 642 of whom were 18-24 year old men. Data presents a snapshot of the general population.
Maithreyi Rajeshkumar is the Policy and Communications Manager for Childnet, a partner in the UK Safer Internet Centre.
Childnet, a partner in the UK Safer Internet Centre, are launching new educational resources as part of Project deSHAME on 14th March 2019. These resources aim to increase reporting of online sexual harassment among minors and improve multi-sector cooperation in preventing and responding to this behaviour.
Project deSHAME Lead, Maithreyi Rajeshkumar, writes on the experiences of girls when facing online sexual harassment.
Today is International Women’s Day, a global day that celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women as well as calling on everyone to ‘Balance for Better’ to achieve gender equality.
Gender equality comes in many forms, and at Childnet we are passionate about making sure that the online world is not only a safe one, but also a positive space where all young people are free to express themselves.
We know the impact of being sexually harassed online not only has a deep impact on those being targeted but can also allow a harmful, silencing culture to develop where others are worried they could become future targets. This was highlighted in our recent Project deSHAME research which found that 2 in 5 girls aged 13-17 sometimes didn’t post images because they were worried about body shaming.
At Childnet, we have been working to tackle online sexual harassment amongst young people as part of Project deSHAME. Next week, on 14th March, we will be launching ground-breaking new resources for schools to deliver long-needed education on this issue.
Project deSHAME was initiated in 2017 following focus groups where young people told us about the phenomenon of ‘bait out’ pages. These are usually on social media pages or groups which ask people to contribute images, videos or comments about other people’s sexual behaviour in order to humiliate or expose them.
At the same time as we were running these focus groups the Professionals Online Safety Helpline, our partner in the UK Safer Internet Centre, were receiving an increasing number of calls from educators concerned about the pages and the issues surrounding them.
Yesterday I appeared on the Victoria Derbyshire Show on the BBC, talking about the very same behaviour amongst young people. Often these groups use derogatory and misogynistic language to humiliate and embarrass girls – which is commonly referred to as ‘slut shaming’.
Behaviour that might be natural expressions of sexuality can be used against girls in a way that is different to boys. Women and girls are stigmatised for engaging in behaviour that is judged as promiscuous. What is perceived as ‘sexually inappropriate’ conduct for girls can be legitimately used to publicly humiliate them.
As one young person told us “If a boy has hooked up with several girls then he’s like cool…If girls have hooked up with several you’re like…a slut.“
Our research found that 65% of young people said that girls are judged more harshly for sexual rumours shared about them online than boys.
It’s important that we look at the issue of bait out pages as part of a wider pattern of online sexual harassment, and within a gendered context.
Our work with children, schools, parents and carers shows that the sexual harassment, misogyny and sexualisation is a real problem for many girls, both online and offline.
Sexual harassment is not a new phenomenon, but the ‘audience’ and ‘evidence’ provided by digital technology facilitates it and has opened the door for new forms of sexual harassment.
While our research showed that both girls and boys are being targeted by online sexual harassment by their peers, it also highlighted that this form of harassment takes place in a gendered context. We found that girls are more likely to be targeted than boys, particularly for some forms of online sexual harassment, with these incidents often resulting in more negative outcomes for girls.
Our research with 1,559 UK teens found that:
When we look at this issue through a gendered lens, it does not mean that boys do not experience online sexual harassment. Harmful gender stereotypes can mean that boys can be negatively affected, believing that they cannot be ‘victims’ or feel pressure to appear sexually active or ‘collect nudes’ for example.
Our research also found that boys were more likely to be targeted with homophobic or transphobic bullying online.
You can read the full report looking at peer-based online sexual harassment.
We have worked closely with young people, teachers and other professionals to develop interactive, engaging and relatable resources. They will be freely available for all schools, youth groups and education settings across the UK. They aim to:
As part of its work within the UK Safer Internet Centre, South West Grid for Learning (SWGfL) delivers dozens of free online safety briefings up and down the UK each year. Online Safety Live has been designed exclusively for professionals who work with children and young people. Typical Online Safety Live attendees include:
Teachers and school staff
Police officers
Foster carers
Social workers
Youth club staff
Healthcare workers
If your day to day work brings you into contact with young people, Online Safety Live is for you.
This month we are in Portsmouth, Isle of Wight, Salisbury, Winchester, Trowbridge, Swindon and Hereford. Tickets are still available.
Each session packs the very latest in keeping children safe online into a two-hour briefing. Your session will include the biggest trends and issues you need to be aware of, new and upcoming changes to legislation and safeguarding, plus the best resources to help you keep the young people in your care safe online.
Select sessions in 2019 will also include a special 30-minute section on tackling the growing problem of online hate speech with SELMA, Social and Emotional Learning for Mutual Awareness. We will introduce you to this pioneering new project and give you a glimpse into the upcoming SELMA Toolkit, a collection of principles, methods and practices for use in schools and youth settings.
Sessions are completely free. We’re able to deliver these briefings with no charge as part of the UK Safer Internet Centre’s Online Safety Live outreach programme, co-funded by the European Commission’s Connecting Europe Facility. This allows us to deliver free, balanced and impartial advice to the UK children’s workforce.
‘The was an informative and well thought through presentation. I feel that I will definitely be able to make a difference to the confidence of professionals and ultimately the safety of young people in Sunderland.’ – Catherine, Together for Children, Sunderland
‘A fantastic event, very engaging and thought provoking. It certainly made me realise that as an adult working young people I must find the time, amongst a busy curriculum, to empower and support children in their decisions when using social media and the internet.’ – Karen, Hedworth Lane Primary, Tyne and Wear
‘I had no idea that there was so much information and guidance available to help professionals, parents and young people navigate their way through using the internet safely. The event was really helpful and it is very comforting to know where to go to get up to date help and advice when necessary. Thank you.’ – Marni, Whitley Bay High School, North Tyneside
We are on the road for nine months a year and our next sessions will be in:
Portsmouth – 11th March – 14:00-16:00
Isle of Wight – 12th March – 10:30-12:30
Isle of Wight – 12th March – 14:00-16:00
Salisbury – 13th March – 9:30-11:30
Winchester – 13th March – 14:00-16:00
Trowbridge – 14th March – 9:30-11:30
Swindon – 14th March – 15:30-17:30
Hereford – 15th March – 9:15-11:15
Deeside – 1st April – 14:00-16:00
Anglesey – 2nd April – 9:30-11:30
Wrexham – 2nd April – 14:00-16:00
Llanelli – 3rd April – 14:00-16:00
Porthcawl – 4th April – 9:30-11:30
Cardiff – 4th April – 14:00
Northern Ireland – W/C 29th April – Locations, dates and times TBC
Ipswich – 13th May – 14:00-16:00
Great Yarmouth – 14th May – 9:00-11:00
Peterborough – 15th May – 9:30-11:30
Peterborough – 15th May – 14:30-16:30
Huntingdon – 16th May – 9:30-11:30
Cambridge – 16th May – 14:30-16:30
Cambridge – 17th May – 9:30-11:30
Northampton – 10th June – 14:30-16:30
Northampton – 11th June – 9:30-11:30
Dunstable – 11th June – 14:30-16:30
Bedford – 12th June – 9:30-11:30
Luton – 13th June – 9:30-11:30
Luton – 13th June – 16:00-18:00
The Childnet website has an exciting new area for children aged 8-11 years old.
A selection of useful information pages have been written and developed by the Childnet team specifically for primary aged children and are now live on the Childnet website.
Every day, our Education Team are in schools across the country talking to children, young people, teachers and parents about their experiences online and how they can stay safe on the internet. Inspired by the most frequently asked questions we hear directly from young people in schools, we have created 8 new information pages for primary pupils aged 8-11 years old.
Each page answers one of the following questions:
The pages have been written specifically for children to access if they have questions about staying safe online and include top tips, videos and short quizzes.
Over the next few weeks, we will be publishing two further blogs advising parents, carers and professionals working with this age group on how they can support young people in accessing this information and use it to start wider discussions about using the internet safely and positively.
This content is delivered as part of our work in the UK Safer Internet Centre and is co-financed by the Connecting Europe Facility of the European Union.
The UK Safer Internet Centre (UKSIC) is a partnership of three leading UK charities – Childnet International, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and South West Grid for Learning (SWGfL). Co-funded by the European Commission’s Connecting Europe Facility, UKSIC’s mission is to make the internet a better place for children and young people. As UKSIC embarks on its fifth phase of co-funding from the European Commission, we look back at the achievements of the Centre over the last thirty months in our end-of-phase report.
The Centre has three main pillars, an awareness centre, a hotline and a helpline. Together, these functions serve to support young people, parents and professionals in the UK and around the world. The report highlights the progress and achievements that the Centre has made in making the internet a better and safer place for all.
