Filipino youth as better netizens

Titik Poetry founder Verlin Santos believes that when Filipinos use their talent and skills for important causes such as digital responsibility, the Internet would be a much safer world to navigate.

In celebration of this year’s Safer Internet Day, Google Philippines partnered with the Department of Education to launch a series of animated spoken word poetry videos teaching Filipinos how to be better netizens. The episodes carry the themes of online security, oversharing prevention, critical thinking and spreading kindness online. These were conceptualized with the help of Titik Poetry and youth volunteers from the Teach Peace Build Peace Movement.

“At Google, we believe in enabling partners, communities and volunteers so we can all build a safer Internet. The campaign is a shared effort of individuals from different walks of life to demonstrate that everyone can make a valuable contribution and be a better netizen. Everyone can use their passion, talents or skills to promote digital responsibility in their own way,” country director of Google Philippines Bernadette Nacario said in a video conference.

FILIPINOS have to be careful with the information they share online. / PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF UNSPLASH/NORDWOOD THEMES

The videos were illustrated and animated by Christwin Felix, a multimedia arts teacher and are written by Grace Bufi, co-founder of Basa Bookstore and The Storytelling Project.

Felix said, “Aside from storytelling, the episodes have specific information lists. That’s not just it, viewers get to learn how to venture online while learning how to be kind and alert in a world full of misinformation while watching.”

ONLINE security is one of the major concerns among Filipino netizens of today. / PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF UNSPLASH/DOLE777

Since its launch in February 2020, the Cyberpeace campaign reached at least 10,000 high school students and more than 416,000 netizens nationwide through social media and webinars.
“The main purpose of the videos is to remind viewers to be careful in sharing information online. We have to be responsible for what we put out there,” Bufi added.

The episodes, voiced over by Dingdong Dantes and narrated by YouTuber Janina Vela, are for viewing on Google Philippines’ YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/user/GooglePhilippines.