Digital citizenship education could make the internet safer

With the slogan ‘Together for a Better Internet’, February 7, 2023 marked the 20th International Safer Internet Day. As the digital world no longer remains isolated from our physical world, conversations around safety on the internet need to move beyond the narrow understanding of protection from the more obvious threats to individuals such as hacking, phishing, identity theft, financial frauds, etc. to more societal threats such as echo chambers, hate speech and misinformation. Today, in fact, a safe online space is an indispensable component of a safer world and we need a holistic approach that factors in the internet’s potential to influence people, geopolitics, markets, institutions, and the world as we know it. However, even as governments around the world wrestle with the legal and regulatory structures that can enable a safer internet, an important aspect that is often left out is building the capacity of people to avoid the pitfalls of the internet. An effective way to do this is to catch people young.