New Delhi,
February , 2023.
Meta today
announced its partnership with the Ministry of Electronics and Information
Technology (MeitY) for the G20 Stay Safe Online Campaign.
As part of the partnership with MeitY, Meta will create and share helpful
resources in multiple Indian languages through various channels, to spread
awareness on how to stay safe online.
The resources
under the G20 Stay Safe Online will cover themes such as tackling online
frauds, how to report harmful content, tips to keep yourself safe when
interacting online and more. India is at the cusp of becoming a $ trillion
digital economy and at the time when India is holding the G20 presidency, this
strategic partnership will not only support and equip the existing Internet
users but will also be beneficial for the rapidly increasing new Internet users
in India.
Speaking on
the partnership, Akash Tripathi, CEO, MyGov said, “Under PM
Modi’s vision of India’s Techade, we are witnessing rapid digital adoption and
with this growth, there is a need to create easy to access tools and resources
to protect users from increasing cyber crimes. We, at MeitY, have designed a
Stay Safe online campaign in this year of India's G20 Presidency and we are glad that tech companies
like Meta are taking a lead in supporting the government’s vision of building
an inclusive digital space which is free of severe online threats.”
On Safer
Internet Day, Meta has also launched #DigitalSuraksha campaign
builds on the company's efforts to offer a safer and inclusive internet to
everyone. The first phase of #DigitalSuraksha includes a partnership with
Delhi Police to provide digital literacy to users in Delhi. The current phase
of #DigitalSuraksha also includes a slew of measures on enabling digital
education and literacy across youth well-being, child safety, tackling
misinformation as well as the overall education of users towards various safety
tools and resources available across Meta platforms.
Natasha Jog,
Head, Public Policy, Instagram and Policy Programs, Facebook India (Meta), said, “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 endeavor. Creating a $1 trillion digital economy
requires an ecosystem that is safe and empowering and we will support the
government’s campaign by providing users with education, tools and resources to
protect themselves in this rapidly evolving digital world.”
Providing
Digital Literacy
Law
enforcement agencies are a critical partner in ensuring online safety, under
its #DigitalSuraksha campaign Meta will work with the Delhi Police on
a 2-month long programme to provide digital literacy to 10,000 students across
various schools and colleges in Delhi. Further, Meta and Delhi Police will
jointly build resources to educate users about protecting themselves against
online/ digital scams. As part of this partnership, Meta will also train Delhi
police personnel on Meta’s various safety tools.
The
#DigitalSuraksha campaign finds expression through a Digital Nagrik
Pledge, which was also launched by Meta today, encouraging people across
India to become responsible digital citizens (Nagriks). Built on Meta’s
partnership with CBSE to provide Digital Citizenship course to 10 million
students and 1 lac teachers, Digital Nagrik Pledge will further support the
Indian Government’s objective to ensure an open, safe, trusted and accountable
internet. The goal of the program will be to get 1 million people to pledge and
to become safe digital citizens over the next one year.
Building
Consumer Awareness
Underscoring
the critical importance of educating users, Meta has also unpacked a series of
consumer awareness initiatives on the tools and resources available for people
to stay safe.
Building on
the partnership with Delhi Police, for a period of one month, Meta will wrap
one train on Delhi Metro’s Yellow line to educate users about safety tools
available for them on Meta’s platforms. Commuters will be redirected to
Meta’s safety tools through a QR code.
A new ‘Help
protect children. Don’t Share. Don’t Comment. Report.’ campaign was also launched,
to prevent the sharing of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and encouraging
people to report such content instead. The campaign will educate users on the
harm of sharing CSAM, and the impact it has on the victim and will encourage
anyone who sees harmful videos and images of children to protect the victim by
reporting it immediately to Facebook. The new campaign builds on the ‘Report
it, don’t share it,’ campaign launched by Meta last year.
This year’s
theme for Safer Internet Day underlines a crucial aspect of supporting young
children by having conversations on life in the online world. With an aim to
support and encourage meaningful conversations between parents and children
around critical topics like use of social media, mental health and digital
wellbeing, Meta has launched UnGap. A series of six episodes, UnGap
is a chat show featuring pairings of well-known parents and children that
includes actor Sheeba Chaddha and daughter Noor, actor Ahsaas Channa and mother
Kulbir Badesron, comedian Abhishek Kumar and father Sundar Baalaji and
entrepreneur Roshan Abbas and daughter Ayatal Abbas, among others.
Additionally,
an awareness campaign on ‘tips for tackling misinformation’ was also
launched with Yuvaa, through short videos. Available in Hinglish, 15-second
campaign videos will feature six simple tips and tricks on tackling and
identifying misinformation.
Meta will
continue to add more initiatives to the #DigitalSuraksha campaign
over the year. These will be geared towards reaching a larger set of users by
educating them, creating more awareness and advancing India’s agenda of digital
inclusion and growth.