The Cybersmile Foundation Marks Safer Internet Day 2021 with Haunting Campaign

The Cybersmile Foundation, with the support of Area 23, an FCB Health Network Company, today released its latest multichannel campaign to raise awareness of how online comments and conversations - even when using humour - can have unexpected real-life impact.

The global ‘Think Twice Before You Type’ initiative is being launched to coincide with Safer Internet Day. The campaign is encouraging people to be mindful of how their comments can be interpreted or misinterpreted online without visual or audible indicators as to how a person is really feeling.

To help drive home the important campaign message, Cybersmile and Area 23 worked with multiple Cannes Lions Gold–winning photographer, Ale Burset, to depict people’s dejected faces overlaid with happy emoji makeup.

Ale commented: “It was a fun project, to capture the difference between how people can portray their feelings and their real feelings.”

The powerful images and videos deliver important messages and will be shared across Cybersmile’s official social media channels to its community of over 1.3 million internet users to help audiences better consider how they communicate online.

“It’s something we feel strongly about because we’ve all done it." commented Leo Arcoverde, associate creative director of Area 23. "Whether it’s something you mean as a joke or something that came across harsher than you intended. It’s easy to hurt someone without ever realising it. So, we wanted people to think twice.”

Laura Lewandowski, chief policy officer of The Cybersmile Foundation, added: “Our 'Think Twice Before You Type' campaign is a powerful reminder of why we need to be mindful of the way we communicate online. When you’re talking with someone online, whether it’s on social media or through texts, you’re missing important context on how those comments are received. Facial cues and tone of voice are not captured in a typed response, so it’s easy to be unaware of how someone is really feeling in a conversation. The reality is people we interact with online each day could be at breaking point without us having realised.”