Digi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd launched the #Be Smart About Cyberbullying Survey 2017, seeking to gather the largest repository of online bully behaviour among secondary schoolchildren including the impact and effectiveness of the actions that were taken to overcome this challenge sourced from more than 5000 secondary school students nationwide.
Access to the survey will be made available online http://cybersafeinschools.my/kajiselidik as well as through UNICEF’s uReport platform. There are also plans to tie-in with roadshows in 2018 to engage with more students and encourage them to contribute their voices to the survey.
One of the key objectives of the survey will be to understand the online behavioral patterns of schoolchildren and the disposition toward bullying behaviors, the emotional impact of victims as well as the effectiveness of the coping strategies adopted. Another equally pressing question to be answered by the survey is whether there is a need to constantly review the way cyberbullying is mitigated, given the evolving nature of technology. Ultimately, the survey strives to provide an alignment between what is currently happening online and the effective mechanisms that need to be in place besides, providing the right advice to our children. What the survey and Digi recognise is that the building of digital resilience among our schoolchildren and nurturing vigilance is a continuous effort for all parties.
Cognizant of the need to continuously review efforts on resilience building and nurturing vigilance against cyber risks, Albern Murty, CEO of Digi said, “ With our partners and through our CyberSafe programme, we are helping more children to be aware and take steps towards keeping themselves safe while they enjoy the many learning opportunities that the internet provides. We are fortunate to be in a country where connectivity is easily accessible for all, yet our earlier surveys has found that many children are still unaware of online risks such cyberbullying or cybergrooming. Through Digi CyberSAFE, we strive to narrow the gap by building digital resilience and nurture digital citizenship among schoolchildren in country,” he added.
The findings from Digi’s National Survey conducted in 2014 revealed that 1 out of 4 students, aged 13 to 15 being the highest group, have admitted to being cyberbullied. They also admitted that parents and teachers would not be their first choice of disclosure. This correlates with another finding from a Telenor survey whereby 58% of parents admitted that they wouldn’t know what to do if their child is cyberbullied.
The survey forms a key pillar of Digi’s CyberSAFE programme. Over the past half a decade, Digi has been very active in advocating for a safer internet space for our future generation by creating awareness and building digital resilience among schoolchildren. With a goal to engage as many schoolchildren as possible, Digi together with Telenor group has pledged to engage 4 million schoolchildren by 2020 across its 12 international markets.
In contributing towards the Sustainable Development Goals, Digi has identified two focus areas – Enabling Digital Inclusion and Building Digital Resilience – towards helping to reduce inequalities. In enabling Digital Inclusion, Digi looks to provide opportunities for underprivileged and underserved community groups to benefit from the power of the internet. Towards this end, Digi has supported the development of EDDY – a free mobile application that provides access to learning sign language easily for the deaf community, their family members or anyone that is interested to learn; worked with Dialogue in the Dark (DiD), a social enterprise that focuses on providing equal opportunities for meaningful employment for the blinds and Persons with Disability (PWD) through development of a remote call center solution, and Sekolah Dalam Hospital where Digi enabled digital learning for school-going children who warded in hospitals to ensure they are not left behind in their studies.
“Sustainability is fundamental to any business, ours included. At Digi, it is embedded as part of our business operations; where we prioritise best practice principles, transparency and accountability in the way we operate, and manage our business and supply chain. It also lies closely to our ambitions to empower societies by bringing mobile connectivity and digital solutions that are easily accessible, and meaningful to the underserved and underprivileged communities,” added Albern at the launch of the #Be Smart about Cyberbullying survey.