Safer Internet Day 2020 was widely celebrated across the globe

On Tuesday, 11 February 2020, we celebrated the 17th edition of Safer Internet Day (SID), with events and activities taking place right across the globe in over 170 countries, and with many organisational supporters too. 

Date 2020-03-31 Author BIK Team
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With a theme, once again, of "Together for a better internet", the day called upon all stakeholders to join together to make the internet a safer and better place for all, and especially for children and young people.

The Safer Internet Day website, our central platform showcasing the wealth of events and activities taking place across the globe, attracted more attention than ever. On the day of SID itself, it received no less than 44,000 users – meaning that our website traffic more than doubled from SID 2019! The number of visits in the month leading up to SID also increased significantly, reaching more than 147,000 users.

In addition, this year's Safer Internet Day promotional video did not go unnoticed – at the close of the day of SID, it had been watched over 132,500 times on YouTube, 680,000 times on Twitter, and 8,500 times on Facebook!

On social media, Safer Internet Day was a major topic of discussion; on Twitter, our @SafeInternetDay account received no less than 2.5 million impressions, more than and 60 million potential impressions. This year again, the #SaferInternetDay, #SID2020 and #SaferInternetDay2020 hashtags became trending topics in various parts of the globe.

We were able to achieve such a high level of visibility thanks to the awareness efforts of Safer Internet Centres, Safer Internet Day Committees and Safer Internet Day Supporters. More than ever, we thank you for your support, your enthusiasm and your commitment.

On social media, SID also enjoyed widespread support from the EU institutions, featuring in posts from the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, Roberto Viola, Eva Maydell, the Council of Europe, the Digital Single Market, DG Migration and Home Affairs, the European Data Protection Supervisor, DG Justice and Consumers, the Child Rights Intergroup in the European Parliament; in video addresses by Margaritis Schinas and Mariya Gabriel; and in an article written by Mariya Gabriel and Thierry Breton in The Parliament Magazine.

A flurry of other influential supporters helped spread the word about SID on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, such as the UN, UNICEF, Henrietta H. Fore, NSPCC, James McVey, Heads Together, Laura Marano, Snapchat, YouTube, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Millie Bobby Brown, Siwon Choi, Charli d'Amelio, Instagram, INTERPOL, Kaspersky, LEGO, Liberty Global, Sonia Livingstone, the Children's Society, the BBC, The Web Foundation, EUROPOL, Internet Society, the Irish Department of Education, the Turkish Information and Communications Technologies Authority, the Guardia Civil, the Spanish National Police, the Colombian Police, Save the Children, Orange Business Services, Amnesty, the New Zealand Ministry of Education, and much more!

Many newspapers around the world also published articles about SID, including RTBF, Luxemburger Wort, Mashable India, The Straits Times, CBS, La Republica, HLN, RTL Nieuws, and the Irish Times, among others.

Since the day, we've received a number of articles sharing insightful and inspiring accounts of SID celebrations across the globe:

So, with SID 2020 now behind us, what's next? The Better Internet for Kids (BIK) project, and the Insafe network of Safer Internet Centres run events and activities to raise awareness of online safety and digital citizenship all year round. There are several ways in which you can keep an eye on the initiatives to come:

You can also subscribe to the Better Internet for Kids (BIK) bulletin, a quarterly newsletter providing an in-depth exploration of specific online safety issues – such as positive online content, online challenges, media literacy, and much more.

Besides, Safer Internet Day will be back before you know it! The date of the next edition has already been announced as Tuesday, 9 February 2021, with campaigning activities kicking off in September 2020. Be sure to save the date!

Image of the SID 2021 Save the Date

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