“The Smile of the Child” participated in the Global Safety Summit of Facebook along with over 100 leading organizations from 35 countries around the world

Following the recent recognition of “The Smile of the Child” as a Trusted Partner NGO of Facebook, the Organization was invited to participate in the Global Safety Summit 2018, organized by Facebook on Friday, the 2nd of March in Washington, DC.

The recognition of “The Smile of the Child” as one of the Trusted Partner NGOs of Facebook aims to alert on sensitive content on Facebook or Instagram. This channel of cooperation is primarily dedicated to issues of child safety, hate speech, sexual abuse and cyberbullying. Through this partnership “The Smile of the Child” gains direct access to the Safety Center of Facebook in order to address effectively and refer in a timely manner cases and relevant incidents that put the safety of children under serious risk.

“The Smile of the Child” was represented at the Summit by the President of the BoD, and also President of the BoD of the European Antibullying Network, (EAN) Mr. Costas Yannopoulos, who had the opportunity to present to the participants the actions of prevention, awareness raising and direct intervention that “The Smile of the Child” implements in Greece, as part of a broader global mobilization and coalition, in order to ensure the online protection of children across the world.

Leading actors and representatives in safety and technology from over 100 organizations from 35 countries participated in the Summit. The event gave them the opportunity to discuss about the global challenges and opportunities for the protection of children, as well as present good practices, innovative tools and ideas, new digital applications and ways of online interaction with the aim to educate children on the proper use of technology and ensure their protection from the risks hidden in the online world.

Facebook and “The Smile of the Child” have united their forces since October 2016 through an official partnership on every launch of an Amber Alert in Greece for a child that goes missing and is in immediate danger.

More concretely, both organizations cooperate through the dissemination of an Alert message to the community of Facebook in the event of a missing child at risk and an activation of the mechanism of Amber Alert. The purpose of this partnership is to facilitate the spread of instant information via a dedicated email notification to all users in Greece when a child goes missing.

In addition, the partnership between “The Smile of the Child” and Facebook covers the field of the online safety of children and prevention of phenomena related to the use of the Internet.

As one of the 33 global suicide prevention partners of Facebook, “The Smile of the Child” encourages reports of suicidal content in order to ensure the online protection of children and directly intervene and help children in need of support. This cooperation is possible thanks to the 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, operation of the National Helpline for Children SOS 1056 and the European Helpline for Children and Adolescents 116111, as well as the partnership with the Cyber-Crime Unit of the Hellenic Police.

It is worth mentioning that Facebook also teamed up with “The Smile of the Child”, “The Jed Foundation” and “The Clinton Foundation” in 2016 with the goal to create “the Help a Friend in Need” guide. This guide was developed for young people to help identify when one of their friends is showing signs of distress online. In addition, the guide provides guidance on how to deal with each incident on a case-to-case basis.

For access to the full video material of the Global Safety Summit click here.