• The Instagram platform has decided to launch this Tuesday a vast awareness campaign in order to fight against cyberstalking, of which teenagers are mainly victims.

  • From September 2021 to June 2022, an awareness program will be deployed in nearly 300 schools across the country, with the aim of training 70,000 young people in the fight against cyberbullying.

  • "The fight against harassment is our top priority, and we are proud to launch a campaign of this magnitude for the first time in France", explained Adam Mosseri, CEO of Instagram World, during a roundtable in which participated

    20 Minutes.

It is a campaign on an unprecedented scale, and which comes at the right time ... ) decided to launch this Tuesday a vast awareness campaign in order to fight against cyberstalking, of which more and more adolescents are victims.

Supported by the First Lady Brigitte Macron and the Secretary of State in charge of Children and Families, and in partnership with Génération numérique and the association e-Enfance, this campaign called "#LePoidsDesMots" aims to raise awareness among teens at the risk of abusing certain online behaviors.

"The fight against harassment is our top priority, and we are proud to launch a campaign of this magnitude for the first time in France," said Adam Mosseri, CEO of Instagram Monde, during a roundtable at which participated

20 Minutes

.

"Train nearly 70,000 young people"

"All platforms have a responsibility, it is our duty to find innovative solutions to deal with this scourge of bullying, which many young people suffer at school and on social networks," said the boss. of the platform, owned by Facebook.

From September 2021 to June 2022, an awareness program will be deployed in nearly 300 schools across the country, "with the desire to train 70,000 young people in the fight against cyberbullying," said Adam Mosseri.

Nearly 1,800 prevention workshops will be held in colleges for 11-15

years, in order to educate them on the subject of cyberstalking, and to teach them how to protect themselves from it.

“Nearly 200 additional workshops will also be held for parents, to help them engage in dialogue on this essential subject with their children,” the platform also announced.

Twelve content creators and influencers will also work on this awareness-raising work, by sharing their personal experience concerning harassment, and by encouraging their community to get involved with them.

Many features to make the platform "safer"

“We have been working on this issue for years. We have already implemented many features to help young people protect themselves from cyberstalking. And we will continue our efforts to ensure that Instagram is a safe place for our young users ”, also insisted on Adam Mosseri. Many options to make the platform more "safe" have indeed been developed and improved in recent months by the social network.

Since last April, users have been able to activate a function to automatically hide "direct message requests" containing offensive words, expressions or emojis. The platform also launched last year the "Restrict" tool, allowing to restrict the publications of an "abusive" user, without the user being notified. And a few weeks ago, at the end of July, Instagram announced that it was switching the accounts of its users under 16 to private mode, the latter also no longer being able to receive "push" notifications from 9 pm.

Instagram is not the only platform to multiply the measures to try to make its platform more secure for minors.

To avoid scandals that could tarnish their reputation and deprive them of advertising revenue, all the major platforms have recently updated their regulations concerning teens.

The TikTok application, singled out for promoting the emergence of the # Anti2010 hashtag, announced a few days ago the deployment of new features aimed at strengthening the safety and well-being of minors on its platform.

YouTube (Google) also implemented similar measures last August, including making videos uploaded by 13-17 year olds by default in "private" mode.

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  • Middle School

  • By the Web

  • Facebook

  • Social networks

  • TikTok

  • Insult

  • Cyber ​​harassment

  • Violence

  • Teenager

  • Instagram

  • Youth