Thousands of people around Ireland are taking part in the Safer Internet Day 2023 celebrations!

This year’s theme is promoting respect and empathy online. There is still time to get involved and participate in one of the many activities taking place – here are some of the events happening for #SID2023.

 Safer Internet Day 2023 – Building Respect and Empathy online

The Irish Safer Internet Centre is hosted an event exploring the theme of building empathy and respect online.

The event was led by the Webwise Youth Advisory Panel members together with other students and gave young people the space to reflect and discuss respect and empathy online. We were also joined by the Ombudsman for Children; Dr. Niall Muldoon and colleagues from the DCU Anti-Bullying Centre who contributed to the discussions, and presented the key findings from a recent survey on bystander behaviour online.

Complementary interactive stakeholders’ discussions explored some of the opportunities and challenges as they relate to protecting, empowering, and respecting children and young people online while also looking to future priorities.

This event will also officially launched the Webwise #SilentWitness Awareness Campaign.

Today marks 20 years of #SaferInternetDay.

The internet has changed *a lot* since 2003, but a lot of the same issues are still being tackled.pic.twitter.com/YehHZ0tapi

— Rob O’Hanrahan (@RobOHanrahan) February 7, 2023

#SilentWitness Campaign

The #SilentWitness campaign explores the topic of online bullying and abuse. The campaign is a series of three short films aiming to spark conversations inside and outside the classroom, families, amongst peers, and in the wider community around the topic of online bullying and action that can be taken.

Find out more at webwise.ie/silentwitness

The #SilentWitness Campaign – TikTok

High profile TikTokers Shanice Griffin and Mary-Claire Fitzpatrick made TikTok videos to raise awareness of the #SilentWitness campaign and key messages!

@mcluvs2laugh If you spoke to people in real life like trolls do on the internet. I’m delighted to partner with TikTok and @WebwiseIreland for Safer Internet Day this year. I’ve been making videos online for years, so I’ve seen a thing or two in the comments. It’s always baffled me how people speak to one another through a screen, as if there’s no one reading them on the other end. We want to help bridge that gap from the screen to the person. If you see a nasty comment, don’t scroll and ignore it. Don’t be a #SilentWitness and help make TikTok a safer place for everyone #saferinternetday ♬ original sound – Mary-Claire Fitzpatrick

150 students from schools across Ireland took part in this year’s Webwise SID Ambassador Programme. This year the training programme had a hybrid format with two online training session, and an in-person training day which took place in Google HQ in Dublin. The training day also featured a youth-led discussion about the opportunities and challenges of the online world, with special guests TikTok content creator Jacob Donegan and journalist Roe McDermott.

Over the course of the training sessions the peer-led programme equipped students with the skills and knowledge to lead their own online safety campaigns in their schools and communities.

The young people led an incredible range of initiatives to raise awareness of the #SID2023 theme of promoting respect and empathy, and many other online safety and digital literacy topics including cyberbullying, big data, false information, image-sharing and consent, and privacy.