Spain to help 27,000 youngsters surf Internet safely

Madrid, Jan 20 (EFE).- Spain’s drug addiction aid foundation (FAD) and Google on Thursday launched an initiative to help 27,000 young people between the ages of 8 and 18 to surf the internet safely.

‘Surf the net’ aims to combat misinformation on social media by teaching youngsters how to detect fake news online and surf the internet with knowledge, safety and criteria.

Spain’s Queen Letizia, who is also the honorary president of FAD, and fact-checking specialists from EFE Verifica unveiled the project on Thursday at an event at the Google campus in Madrid.

“There is a lot of content online that does not go through editing or journalistic verification,” head of EFE Verifica, Desirée García, said.

This initiative will change youngsters’ mindset to not believe everything that is presented to them online, Garcia added.

Workshops will be provided for up to 8,000 school children between the ages of 8-12 as part of the ‘Be Internet Awesome’ program and ‘Google Interland’ online game.

Meanwhile, youngsters between the ages of 12 to 18 will be provided with awareness-raising tools on how to identify false content. EFE

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