Kominfo's Strategy To Create A Safe Digital Space For Children

Ilustrasi browsing internet (Photo by Lilly Rum on Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Also commemorating World Safe Internet Day, the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (Kominfo) conveyed a number of steps to make digital space safe for use by children and parents.

The Senior Assistant for the Special Staff of the Menkominfo for Digital and Human Resources, Bhredipta Socarana said that the pandemic conditions made the use of the internet by children something that could not be avoided. Therefore, Bhredipta emphasized that his party would actively conduct cyber patrols.

"Such as social media monitoring, internet monitoring, websites, to ensure our digital space is clean from negative content and safe for children," said Bhredipta in a Google webinar entitled "Internet Agile Families", Tuesday, February 9.

In addition, Bhredipta also emphasized the importance of parents or guardians to accompany children during online activities. To facilitate the mentoring process, the Ministry of Communication and Information also provides a number of methods of increasing knowledge through digital literacy activities.

Later, digital literacy activities will not only target children. This activity will also target parents so that they are able to provide better assistance during children's digital activities.

"It also provides an understanding of how to use the internet properly, how to avoid negative content, and how to use the internet in a conducive and productive manner," explained Bhredipta.

National Digital Literacy Movement

Bhredipta explained that digital literacy is one of the focuses of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology's program for 2021. The program is named the National Digital Literacy Movement and is managed by Siberkreasi. Meanwhile, one of the main pillars is Digital Parenting.

"This activity (digital parenting, -red) discusses issues around childcare in the digital era, including encouraging digital literacy for parents and children so that using the internet is more conducive and productive," said Bhredipta.

The Ministry of Communication and Information is also targeting 9,252 Cybercreation activities in the form of online Digital Parenting classes which will last for 2021. In this class, one of the materials that will continue to be discussed is Smart Parenting. This material covers issues related to personal data and digital footprints of children.

"Kominfo also provides various types of references, guidelines, guides, and digital literacy related to Digital Parenting which can be accessed through the pandudigital.id or literasidigital.id websites," added Bhredipta.

With the availability of this access, he hopes, the Ministry of Communication and Information, which has collaborated with Ministries, institutions and stakeholders from other ministries to promote how to use a healthy internet.

"The internet is good, not only for children, but also for their parents," concluded Bhredipta.