Events

Introducing #TweeSurfing: a new online safety program for India

By
Thursday, 29 June 2017

As a member of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council, the Centre for Social Research is proud to help people in India understand how they can express themselves positively, and we’re encouraged by the work Twitter is doing in this space. Today, we’re excited to launch #TweeSurfing, a new collaboration with Twitter and some of India’s most popular influencers with #TweeSurfing: a world-first public education initiative to address online safety issues.

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#TweeSurfing is the result of a year of working closely with Twitter and youth and digital influencers on online safety workshops across the country. The learnings and outcomes of these workshops have been combined into a new web resource at http://tweesurfing.in/. The website aims to foster a culture of positive Twitter engagement by promoting the use of counter speech, issue specific campaigns, and developing and sharing user-created best practices.

Twitter is more influential and has more influencers using it than any other platform. These influencers are key to spreading the word about #TweeSurfing, so at the launch we also announced some of our ambassadors including comedians Kaneez (@kaneezsurka), Sorabh Pant (@hankypanty), and Rohan Joshi (@mojorojo). Each of them shared their personal experiences of being high-profile and influential users on the world’s biggest public platform, as well as presenting the latest tools and policies aimed to improve Twitter for everyone.

 

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In addition to the ambassadors at today’s event, the project has also received backing from a lot of influential users Gaurav Kapoor (TV presenter) @gauravkapur, Aditi Mittal (Comic) @awryaditi, Ankur Tewari (Musician) @ankurtewari, Trisha Shetty (NGO Leader) @TrishaBShetty, Priyanka Chaturvedi (Congress Party Member) @priyankac19, Harish Iyer (Equal Rights Activist) @hiyer, Anshul Tewari (Founder, Youth Ki Awaaz) @anshul_tewari, Amit Malviya (BJP IT Head) @malviyamit,  Jay Panda (Member of Parliament) @PandaJay, Ridhi Dogra (Actor) @iRidhiDogra, Amrita Puri (Actor) @_Amrita_Puri, Suhel Seth (Marketing Guru) @suhelseth and more.

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And while we’re excited about today’s launch, this announcement is just the beginning for #TweeSurfing in India!

Over the coming months, we will roll-out an ongoing series of educational workshops, with a particular focus on rural India and government universities. Outside of Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, we'll be taking #TweeSurfing to colleges in Chennai, Kanyakumari and Coimbatore, before heading to the North East. Keep your eye on the #TweeSurfing website for further locations.

We'll also be introducing a new 14 day virtual internship program we call Tweeship. The program, delivered through Twitter DMs, and the @Tweesurfing handle, will train users who sign up on how to create Twitter campaigns for social social change, and then let them practice what they have learnt in a real campaign. The modules will be available in English and Hindi.

And as we love our ambassadors, we'll also keep adding a bunch of India's biggest and most influential stars from all walks of life added to the campaign to help spread the word.

We'll be regularly updating the #TweeSurfing website with new videos and other content so keep checking back to see what's new.

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I’m happy to see that Twitter India is actively engaging with partners like us on such important issues, and we're glad to take our place on Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council to the next level with #TweeSurfing.

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