Meta and Zindagi Trust are collaborating to create the kid safety campaign in an effort to halt the spread of harmful content relating to children’s safety online.
As part of the child safety campaign, a series of policy roundtables with local CSOs and policy stakeholders working in the fields of both digital safety and child rights will be organised. Additionally, the partnering organisations will keep up their ongoing education campaign on the precautions that individual social media users may take to stop the spread of online content that condones child abuse or violent crime.
At a Karachi Zindagi Trust School, the first of three roundtable conversations was held this week. The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Ministry of Human Rights (MoHR), National Commission on the Rights of Child (NCRC), and other important government agencies, along with Meta and local organisations, are expected to find these roundtables to be an ideal setting for meaningful interaction to address the sensitive issues surrounding child safety in Pakistan.
The program’s major objective is to raise awareness of the dangers of spreading this type of information as well as the need of using the current channels and processes for reporting dangerous content on social media. The campaign included instructional films to warn social media users about the risks of sharing inappropriate information online, which might put young victims even more in danger.
Founder and President – Zindagi Trust, Shehzad Roy said:
“Whenever I used to encounter disturbing content, my first instinct was to share it so it could help find the perpetrator. However, I have realised that the content can be distressing for many viewers, is illegal, and is a breach of privacy of the victims. We want to push for justice for victims and advocate for safer digital spaces instead of sensationalising traumatic events. Zindagi Trust takes pride in being a vocal advocate of policy level change for children’s safety and education. We rely on the support of government institutions and social media companies like Meta to help us achieve our goals.”
Sarim Aziz, Director Public Policy, South Asia-Meta said,
“We have a zero tolerance policy for content related to child exploitation and abuse. We use latest ground breaking technology to prevent, detect and remove content related to child abuse and violence. Since this is a highly sensitive matter, we take a comprehensive approach to keep our family of apps free of such malicious content and continue to collaborate with local authorities, rights bodies and relevant stakeholders to Report such content, and not share it, as sharing – even to raise awareness, further traumatises victims,by sharing evidence of their ordeal. Instead the content should be reported in app or through proper channels so that the government agencies can move against those responsible.”
To improve kid safety online, Meta and Zindagi Trust started collaborating last year. This year, the agreement’s purview will be expanded in order to increase its national significance.
