News Overview 2021

The Internet as an echo chamber for hate and agitation - The recently published 2020 report on the protection of the constitution shows that extremism was by no means in lockdown in pandemic times. According to the report, extremist tendencies have increased in the past year.

klicksafe and the Medienscouts NRW offer a new material for use in peer-to-peer work. Under the title "Do you want to go fact-checking with me?", young people can use it to teach their peers the right way to deal with disinformation. The media scouts will demonstrate the actual use of the material in a webinar today. A recording will be available next week on klicksafe.de.

Do fake news and conspiracy narratives stand a chance with you? - Young people learn to debunk conspiracy narratives and fake news in the Actionbound game "In the Bunker of Lies". As part of the Media Literacy Week Rhineland-Palatinate #WMKRLP21, klicksafe is releasing a special edition of the game for school classes and youth groups nationwide.

Many parents worry when their children hardly want to take their eyes off the screen and digital games seem to dominate everyday life. Our topic area provides answers to the questions: What factors promote problematic use? What does science say? Which rules help with prevention and where can parents or their children find support in case of emergency? The klicksafe checklist helps parents make an initial assessment of whether their child has any characteristics of a possible addiction risk with regard to digital media.

More than three quarters of people in Germany experience hate on the net. This is shown by the latest figures from a forsa study on the perception of hate speech on the Internet commissioned by the Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia. At the same time, fear of hate comments is increasing, as is anger at the authors of such comments.

Thumbs up and lots of hearts under the new photo - likes are an important sign of recognition, especially for young people. At the same time, collecting likes on social media services puts a lot of pressure on them. Facebook and Instagram have now announced that users can decide for themselves whether they want to see the number of likes under posts or not.

What are conspiracy narratives and how do they work? How do I recognize a conspiracy narrative and what does belief in QAnon, the flat earth or the Corona lie do to people? With the support of the Federal Agency for Civic Education, a multimedia online learning space has been created to answer these questions. In "Wiebke's confused world," young people can explore conspiracy myths in a playful way.

Together with the Media Scouts NRW, we will provide information about false reports & conspiracy narratives on 17.06.2021.

What stresses young people online and what is good for them? klicksafe and Nummer gegen Kummer e.V. are addressing this question as part of a social media campaign and are looking for participants who are interested in the topic of digital well-being. In three online workshops, participants learn how to plan a successful social media presence and can get creative themselves.

The YouTube format "STRG_F" from funk wins the Data Protection Media Award 2020, worth 3,000 euros, or DAME for short. In a self-experiment with her Amazon Echo smart speaker, Hamburg journalist Svea Eckert finds out that the device listens to her even when it's not supposed to.

Children can find it difficult to correctly assess advertising, image manipulation or chain letters on the Internet. To make them aware of these topics on the web, there is the interactive learning game SWR Fakefinder Kids. Here, children can playfully learn to recognize false information on social media platforms and in messengers.

A clear majority in Germany is in favor of restrictions on addictive media. This is one of the findings of this year's Children's Report published by the German Children's Fund. The newly published report focuses on the topic of "Media addiction and excessive media use in the area of conflict between growing up healthy and children's participation in the media.

The topic of digitization, media use and media consumption by children has come to the fore even more in 2020 due to the Corona pandemic. The new KIM Study 2020 records and documents the media use of six- to 13-year-old children in the special situation of the pandemic.

Only about half of the 15-year-olds in Germany can distinguish opinion from fact, according to the latest PISA special evaluation.

In order to introduce peer education to German schools and establish it nationwide, the Digital Heroes are offering a training series on the topic from May 4 to 18, 2021. In the 21-day challenge "Wir gegen Cybermobbing" (We Against Cyberbullying), Digital Heroes speakers will explain to interested educators why the peer idea is crucial for modern teaching formats and provide concrete recommendations for implementation at their schools.