Together, we can make a difference – on Facebook, too

Purpose and work tasks of the Danish Helpline Our daily work, as Helpline, primarily consists of answering questions and concerns from young people – and their parents – about their experiences online. Inquiries may also include issues about harmful or illegal content young people encounter online. We work from our youth platform Cyberhus.dk as well as through professional communication on www.cfdp.dk. Both platforms provide opportunities for chat counselling and direct dialogue with professionals. Our Helpline work is in perfect keeping with Centre for Digital Youth Care’s overall aim to help, particularly, vulnerable children and young people. Another important aspect is the fact that the network creates the opportunity to work with big social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Ask.fm. This means that, together with Europe’s other 30 Helplines, we participate in establishing the agenda for safety on social media in particular.

Our meeting with Facebook

Most recently, the network of Helplines has conducted a meeting with a representative from Facebook, discussing the safety of this platform and their current procedures. Facebook has a vast number of users, and this naturally gives rise to the unfolding of various issues. Facebook already focuses on this aspect, and over the years, they have devised a number of key policies on nudity, human trafficking, hate speech, and much more. Also, they continually roll out new initiatives – at present time, they are working on suicide prevention and think-before-you-share campaigns. At our meeting, we got the opportunity to ask some of the questions that worry young people and their parents, as experienced on our Helpline, and we put forward their reflections on the safety of Facebook. Among others, we asked the representative from Facebook whether parents can easily report any issues if pictures of their children are shared inappropriately. On this issue, Facebook refers to their function of ‘Privacy Rights – Photo Removal Request’ – promising that they will process reports quickly, and act if necessary.

Greater security in the future

The fact that it is possible to enter into direct dialogue with, for example Facebook, is very positive indeed. The big social platforms are large international corporations, and dialogue may be difficult, especially as private individuals or minor organisations. The value of our international collaboration in Insafe, as Helpline, is therefore apparent to us. As a network of Helplines, we have more leverage. People listen, and we participate in creating reflection, and the big corporations show interest in collaborating with us. This helps create results, and together we are able to increase the security online. Are you interested in learning more about which areas and issues people inquire about and who address us? Then, please visit Insafe’s Better Internet for Kids.

About Safer Internet Centre Denmark

Safer Internet Centre Denmark is a collaboration between The Media Council for Children and Young People, Centre for Digital Youth Care, and Save the Children Denmark. The Media Council is a national information centre focusing on children and young people’s use of digital and social media. Centre for Digital Youth Care runs the national Danish helpline which is a digital counselling platform where children and young people can receive anonymous counselling. Finally, Save the Children Denmark is responsible for the national Danish hotline which handles reports of online material containing sexual child abuse.]]>