TikTok, Zindagi Trust initiate digital safety workshops in govt schools

• About 3,000 students, teachers and parents will learn about safe usage of internet, with focus on social media.
• Separate workshop for teachers and parents will educate them on how they can ensure safety of youngsters on internet.
• Workshops will cover navigating online safety issues such as cyber-bullying, catfishing and false information.

Famous video sharing app TikTok, in collaboration with Zindagi Trust, has initiated a series of workshops across their network of government schools in a bid to create awareness around digital safety among students, teachers and parents.

A statement issued by the partners said that about 3,000 students, teachers and parents will learn about safe usage of the internet, with a focus on social media.

A separate workshop for teachers and parents will also be conducted, seeking to educate them on how they can ensure the safety of youngsters on the internet, it added.

According to the statement, young internet users from grades 7 to 9 will learn about practices of internet usage, and how can they become responsible digital citizens and cultivate a safe online community across the nation.

The workshops will cover a range of topics including navigating online safety issues such as cyber-bullying, catfishing and false information. There will be detailed modules on the harmful behaviours prevalent on social media, ways to share appropriate information, identifying fake news and misinformation and reporting mechanisms to report illicit and harmful content on social media.

The statement said that the workshops also aim to educate teachers and parents on how to use safety features on platforms like TikTok to ensure their children remain safe on social media. They will be guided about TikTok's family pairing features, which allow parents to link their TikTok accounts to their teens' and set controls including screentime management, restricted mode and direct messages.

Farah Tukan, head of government relations and public policy in Middle East, Turkey, Africa and Pakistan (METAP) at TikTok, said: “These workshops are another step in the right direction for ensuring our TikTok community in Pakistan remains digitally safe. We are fully committed to ensuring the safety of Pakistan’s digital community, as we continue implementing policies and processes to proactively identify and prevent every attempt to share inappropriate content on our platform."

Zindagi Trust's Senior Marketing and Resource Development Manager Faiq Ahmed said that it's about time to create awareness among the young generation about digital safety so they can deal with safety and privacy challenges on the internet.