the right to my pictures to be deleted once opened by the receiver;

the right to know who has access to your data and for what purposes;

the right to remove images that I have posted;

the right to be aware and/or choose of data collected and used for advertisement purposes

the right to safety and support, or knowing where to go when things go wrong;

the right to know whether someone I am friended with has special access features through snapchat premium.

I chose the above rights as my privacy policy for Snapchat as they greatly determine whether I would feel safe and secure on the app. The 5Rights campaign allowed me to view what I would have wanted 12-year-old me to see and read instead of an abundance of elaborate regulations and a big blue button that said agree. I firmly believe that these applications and tools need to update or visualise their target audience which is predominately children. Children must feel they are supported and safe when entering the online world, instead, they are guided by the big colourful buttons that undermine their rights. As written by the 5Rights Foundation, Companies must design digital services that cater to the vulnerabilities, needs, and rights of children and young people by default. 

          Rum (2016) underlines the ten most important steps when building your digital strategy including ‘defining your why’. Rum maintains that crafting an effective brand story, authentic messages, and engaging content comes much easier once you find the core “Why?” of your organisation. Another is leaving a positive impression on your viewers or consumers and Rum (2016) enlightens that out of the 20,000 brands digital users may encounter, only 12 leave an impression. It serves a great purpose in telling your story whether you care for the environment, hope to make your app the safest for young children, or you are a charity-based organisation. People resonate with stories that show reality and humble personalities and most likely support these organisations or individuals. There are an abundance of different ways digital media can be used to grab attention and appeal to a large audience. The most popular tools companies use for social media marketing according to Dwivedi, et al. (2021) include Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, etc. Dwivedi, et al. (2021) exhibit studies that find that Snapchat is considered the most intimate, casual, and dynamic platform providing users with information, socialization, and entertainment. From creating videos, infographics, and posters I have seen how interactive information can be formed, and using tools like Snapchat, I can add music, colour, graphics, and subtitles for any picture or video I create that appeals to a younger audience. When creating videos or infographics, I make it a necessity to add different features that illuminate the information I am trying to convey including tools like screencast-o-matic to zoom in and out, YouTube to edit or crop, and applications like TikTok to add filters and subtitles.

                 Online safety is extremely important in terms of my digital strategy and online presence when it comes to posting publicly and also what I have access to and how trustworthy that information is. Anderson (2017) opened my eyes to how misled young children and adults are by the platforms they use and their very detailed and complex terms and conditions. In his article, “A Lawyer Rewrote Instagram’s Privacy Policy so Kids and Parents Have a Meaningful Talk About Privacy”, Anderson (2017) explains how out of the 43% of Instagram users aged 8 to 11, zero of them understand what they signed when signing up for the app. Lievens and Verdoodt (2018), describe how children's data is being collected in unprecedented quantities, by businesses, governments, schools, and other organisations, leading to children's lives being increasingly ‘datafied’. Every person’s online behaviour is being tracked using cookies and plug-ins; joining a social media platform or downloading an app usually involves a transfer of personal information (Lievens, and Verdoodt, 2018). From analysing Snap.com (2024), it is hopeful to see how they have made their terms and conditions readable and accessible to their younger audience. They provide summaries at the bottom of every section that conveys what needs to be understood by their audience.

           It is reassuring to see how blogs and pages are dedicated to making online safety a priority for the younger generation as well as foundations like the 5Rights Foundation (2024) whose goal is to set principles for children and young people to thrive in the digital world. I have learned a great amount from taking this module in portraying a positive and safe environment on the internet. Understanding the terms and conditions that I sign up for on various applications I use is very important in terms of knowing my rights and how my data is used and collected. Receiving positive feedback and making a difference through a platform involves shedding light on important information and verifying the trustworthiness of the information I share. I realise the importance of trends and creating new and interactive forms of digital media to attract attention. In conclusion, the digital strategy I hope to maintain is one of safety, creativity, and trust which will prove to maximise positive and beneficial results as a digital citizen.

Bibliography

Anderson, J. (2017). “A Lawyer Rewrote Instagram’s Privacy Policy so Kids and Parents Have a Meaningful Talk about Privacy”. Quartz, https://qz.com/878790/a-lawyer-rewrote-instagrams-terms-of-service-for-kids-now-you-can-understand-all-of-the-private-data-you-and-your-teen-are-giving-up-to-social-media

Dwivedi, Y. K. (2021). et al. “Setting the future of digital and social media marketing research: Perspectives and Research Propositions.” International Journal of Information Management, vol. 59, p. 102168, 

            https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102168. 

Lievens, E. and Verdoodt, V. (2018). “Looking for needles in a haystack: Key issues affecting children’s rights in the General Data Protection Regulation.” Computer Law & Security Review, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 269–278, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2017.09.007. 

Rum, J. (2016). 10 steps to building an effective digital strategy. Social Media Today.

Snap.Com. (2024). snap.com/en-US/terms#:~:text=All%20Public%20Content%20must%20be,Terms%20or%20any%20applicable%20laws. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024. 

5Rights. (2024). “Building the Digital World That Young People Deserve.”, 5rightsfoundation.com/. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.