This week, we’re proud to be supporting New Zealand’s first-ever Netsafety Week, intended to make Aotearoa New Zealand safer online. Led by Netsafe, this week is an opportunity to promote the power of a safe internet: a message that’s close to our hearts! Netsafety Week is an opportunity to raise awareness about the safe and positive use of digital technology and to kōrero about the role we can all play in creating a better internet in our community.
At Microsoft, we want to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more. To get there, we want to help people connect safely and securely – and we know that we have a special responsibility to help our users stay safe online.
The importance of online safety has also been thrown into sharp relief by the COVID-19 pandemic, as people here in Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world have relied on the internet to work, to play, and to learn. And unfortunately, our most recent global digital civility research has shown that, over the course of the pandemic, people’s perceptions of civility online have declined.
Our research has also given us some useful insights on where collective efforts like Netsafety Week can help make a difference. In 2020, which was the fifth year of our survey, we saw some of the online risks that can cause hate and division to grow, with a few divisive risks experienced at a five-year high: reports of hoaxes, frauds and scams were up 3%, hate speech was up 4%, and discrimination was up 5%. We also saw people across the globe report an all-time low confidence in managing risks, with only 44% of respondents “extremely/very confident”.
To support us all in having healthier, more respectful interactions online, we at Microsoft encourage everyone to take our Digital Civility Challenge – think of it as showing manaakitanga online, just as you would offline. Netsafety Week is a good time to think about how we can uplift our conversations online, so we’re sharing digital civility tip-sheets for adults and teens. Consider putting these on the fridge, the office, or the classroom wall: we’ll be sharing these among the team at Microsoft New Zealand too!
Digital Civility – Tips for Adults
Digital Civility – Tips for Teens
As well as our tip-sheet for teens, we also want to share a new resource that we’ve developed: Digital Safety Essentials for teachers and students. Teachers and other educators play an important role in helping empower young people online and teaching them good digital safety practices. This has become increasingly critical as digital technologies and devices are increasingly integrated into classroom learning. The Digital Safety Essentials site is intended to support in-class discussions on digital safety, across four essential behaviours:
- Protecting your data and identity
- Putting a stop to cyberbullying
- Wising up to risks
- Being a good digital citizen
The site includes material for teens to read and quizzes to test their knowledge, as well as downloadable notes for teachers. Check out the site, and keep learning beyond Netsafety Week!
For more information and resources, check out our website. For more frequent updates, you can follow us on Facebook (@SaferOnline) and Twitter (@Safer_Online).