Ireland’s Youth Distinguish Between what’s Real and Fake Online in Trend Micro’s Online Safety Competition

West Cork Youth Club scoops Trend Micro “Whats Your Story” Award
for Video on Expressing Trust issues with online Influencers

 Trend Micro, a global cybersecurity company, asked Ireland’s young people how they dealt with online trust in this year’s What’s Your Story video competition.

The winning video, ‘Who influences the influencers?’ was created by Skibbereen YMCA, Co. Cork with their clever video exploring the influence behind online influencers, insightfully showing how influencers can’t always be trusted.  (Link to video https://whatsyourstory.trendmicro.ie/entry/2-e8b1cb/)

This discussion is exactly the purpose of the Trend Micro’s annual competition, which encourages dialogue on issues such as media literacy, online trust, privacy, cyberbullying and internet safety.   Finalists were identified through public viewing and rating on the ‘What’s Your Story’ website and judges from Webwise, CyberSafeIreland, Twitter, Facebook, Young Irish Film Makers, TY Ireland and Smart Futures had the difficult task of choosing the 2018 winners.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, Global Programme Manager for Internet Safety at Trend Micro Avril Ronan said, “There can be such a pressure for young people to conform online; in fact for people of all ages. This year’s winning video really highlights the importance of critical thinking; questioning everything and not believing all that you see and read online.  It was so refreshing to see how this issue was creatively portrayed in the winning video, and the video has already provoked so much good conversation amongst their peers and our judges. Congratulations to the creators at YMCA & TechSpace in Skibbereen. Media literacy and online trust was a key theme of the videos created by students and with some fantastic advice for us all, irrespective of age!”

Alicia O’Sullivan, YMCA and TechSpace Skibbereen. Said, “We really felt it was a relevant topic and one that some younger viewers of online bloggers wouldn’t be aware of – they think they know these people, watching their whole lives on a screen. But a lot of the time these products can be endorsed falsely or given to a certain audience knowing they’ll purchase it just because their favourite “beauty blogger” is telling them how great it is. We need the young and old to be more aware of this.”

Several other prizes were distributed in various categories to school children and students across Ireland, with winners in Kildare, Dublin, Kerry, Roscommon and Cork.