 But glad to know you're still there. Like we said, it's always a very, very, very exciting thing to wake up every morning and know that you have a special day because that's the only day of that nature you will see in your lifetime and you've not seen it before today. Like every other 6th of February is Safer Internet Day and it takes place on February 6th, like I said, and each year to raise awareness of Safer and Better Internet for all, especially for children and young people. It doesn't matter that it has been designated like young and children and young people, everybody is involved because the parents that have these children are involved. The educators, even the pastors, imams and everybody, everybody is involved. But to throw more light on what this is all about and everything that has to go around this, I have joining me here or joining us here this morning. Victor Teremba is a development practitioner and change leader with Unguvo Collective. Good morning and welcome to the program, Victor. Good morning and thank you for having me. Good morning. For a day to be set aside to celebrate something or to create awareness over something, it must be very, very important. Walk us through why Safer Internet Day is important to have this day for celebration or for remembrance. Okay, so if you basically think about it, since the work on the Internet became mainstream, became a recent global work on the phenomenon, you've seen that the work on the Internet has been connected to the rest of the world together. And so by this, it has been that the world has become a global village by the shared virtue that we have the Internet with us. And just like every community where you now have a community, there has to be that safety within that community. There has to be a safe environment for people of that community to be able to live safely in that particular local community. So that is why the Safer Internet Day is actually set aside to remind, basically for us to even celebrate the work on the technology of Internet. And then it's going to also remind us that why it has brought the rest of the world, why it has brought us together, we need to always remember that we have to make it safe for us, make it safe for other people, just like we live in our normal communities and societies. So that is what the Safer Internet is about, you know, about seeing how people can then use the Internet more responsibly. People are safer using the Internet and people are more comfortable and convenient using the Internet. Okay, so we're talking about how to make the Internet safer, obviously. But then there are quite some challenges. For instance, people get bullied on the Internet. There's also the other one which is, you know, fake news. A lot of people spread fake news on the Internet. So how do we start to mitigate, you know, all of this? How does Safer Internet Day help us to ensure that you're not getting harassed, you're not getting bullied? Fake news is not being propagated on the Internet. Yeah, so how do we ensure that we have a safer Internet community? I see so this responsibility lies basically on both the government and the citizens. But I also feel that it's more particularly on the part of we the citizens and individuals than the government because the government responsibility more or less lies in work on a collective of political measures. But in terms of preventing it from happening, it means that for we citizens, we need to realize that we have to use the Internet safely. We need to use the Internet more responsibly so that it is safer for us and for other people using it. And it is just the same principles that apply to, like, you know, on a fundamental human rights. So you don't have to, everybody has the right to do this. And so you don't have the right to impede other people from using it. And so that is simply the Internet. And just like you what my right to mention, since we have the Internet, you know, there is some other, what we call, some safe or unethical use of the shared media. So in case that you mentioned work on a cyberbullying, you see thickness of what you're going to, or what you're going to cover, there's no kind of thickness generally. And then you see how people have become, you know, people are being stopped online. And then they get harmed, you know, of the Internet. People get scammed every day. And so there is this, for instance, the Internet is coming. So sometimes how do people even get scammed? Other people, you know, apart from the fact that the Christian website, other people are just so careless about putting out their information, their data, so much outside of the Internet that people are able to have this information and they use it for other nefarious activities. And then also in the case of cyberbullying, for instance, I mean, what do we have to stop people online and then bully them online because we think that we are anonymous. And so there is that act of using Internet responsibly on our part. So why we cannot just speak for everybody but then you have to not look at yourself as an individual that how do I want to use this Internet? And so why some people stay online and then all they do on the Internet or what they all they do is to spread fake news or look for data or how to scam other people, defraud other people. Other people use the Internet specifically to gain more skills and knowledge for self-development. So some people attend, use the work on the Internet for courses. They use it to learn new skills that they better accept and for that they will look themselves as an individual. That is a responsible use of social media. Sometimes it goes good to go and cool off, you know, read the People's Bantas comments, what's happening on the net and then that is a responsible use of that Internet. And so people also care for a kind of information that they put for possible responsible use of Internet. So you can make yourself, you can decide to be a citizen that does that. And then on the part of the government, so you know, government always try to find ways to ensure that the Internet become more responsible for people. And that is why in Nigeria at the moment we had, or even if it's currently we had the Okinawa cyber crime had also, you know, to basically protect innocent citizens and also caution for that soon I want to take that part that there is a law that can actually punish you and also protect other innocent people from criminal activities or yes, or the digital kind of Internet. Okay, so you talked about SCAM for instance. How can you start to, you know, just ensure that you're not being SCAM? So I know there is the whole two factor on tentcation if I'm not mistaken, you know, just ways that you can protect yourself because now we're talking about safer Internet so if you're going to be using the Internet you have to find a way to make sure that it's safe for you. So just to write off what you have said, so how do you, you know, ensure, can you highlight some things that people can do, some factors to put in place to ensure that you are being safe on the Internet? So this is factors, basically some steps or maybe some other factors that you can use to ensure that you're actually safe on the Internet. Sometimes you also have to be careful about the kind of information or online products that you actually consume. And on the Internet there is a secured, so for instance websites, for instance, there are some that are secured and there are others that are not secured and usually when you open this particular website at the beginning, if you find like a, something like a padlock icon, a padlock icon, it shows that that particular website is actually protected. And then it's also, so those kind of websites sometimes, yes, it's very guaranteed but those are actually safer websites, you know, you can use most of the time. And then you always have to be very conscious because of some criminal elements that, you know, use this kind of, they use the Internet. They are also very creative, in other ways to ensure that sometimes they replicate a particular website in a way that you cannot, if you're also expecting you cannot quickly identify that this is a thing, so you need to, if, for instance, you are visiting a site that you are familiar with, you need to be very careful, you need to be able to see that this website is actually safe for you to use. And secondly, you can put out your information. Any website that asks you, any platform or server that's asking for your personal information that it is not satisfied to be safe, you can just go ahead putting out your information. And that's why I said that even sometimes 2FA is not able to work on and guarantee it because sometimes people feel free to these guys creating or skinning skins in a way that they are able to divulge the information that even sometimes a variety of 2FA. And so yes, it's more about being careful not to put out that information that not giving that information anyhow, your information that I have. And then last I also said that any way that we also get to use the Internet that we want it to be safe for us and then safe for us using it responsibly generally. Yeah, you ended with what I want to take you up on. I know that to define responsibility is a relative term. The government defines responsibility being responsible differently from what the citizens do. So that turning issue we can leave it for now and revisit it if we can. But now, is there something in particular role that the government can play apart from just making the laws to punish those who are cyber criminals as it were, who are making the Internet not to be safe? Is there a particular thing the government can do to make sure that our Internet is safe for all of us? I give you an instance. There is this talk, I don't know how true it is, that the algorithms, that's how they call it maybe, that they use on TikTok in China. It's not the same they use in Nigeria. In Nigeria, all what permit the language rubbish that will come to us is not the same thing in China because whatever comes out pops up as TikTok in China is educational, people can learn from it and all that. So is there something that the government can also do deliberately to keep our Internet clean and safe for not just the adults who want to use it to learn but also for the kids who may have access to it? When you mentioned the case of China, it's a bit not so straightforward because I would say that on the part of China what they do, other people will say that it is the regulation of the Internet, making it not freely accessible to everybody to use because they now have to fit exactly what comes in. And so if that basically was for them, if it's a general conceptions in the country that we want to do this particular way we don't want our Internet to be more of educational what kind of educative materials content for enough. I mean, that's fine. So when you say in Nigeria or yes, Nigeria, what can the government specifically do? You mentioned that apart from making the laws the next thing to do is to also implement those laws. But more importantly it is the regulation or let me say the action that really critically protects citizens' data. And that's why for a very long time we didn't even have a data protection working on commission in Nigeria or a act. For instance, once about two or three years ago we did not have the Nigeria data protection and act. I mean, that's a very good way forward to making the Internet save, protecting people's data in the work in the first place and because you find out that within two three years ago, if you also cast your mind back two, three years ago, there were usually the cases of loan apps or telling people's information that had never operated or had not done business with them for getting on some state messages. There were issues of people losing their money in their decent bank accounts. It was very common and then according to the this Nigerian doctor bought us at that time before it became an act one particular bank had over 16,000 attempts and over about 80% of those attempts to hack them to get them back from their working on data base. We are really successful. But since we've had that, you know, not that that's legal framework in place and there is also being implemented you also get found out that there has been a reduction in this kind of coconut instances and today I say the world critical will have presented that but first of all it's also to make the law and then implement those laws. So we're not like, how do we now, when I want to filter the kind of information or the kind of data that people to get, that's my go beyond the democratic norms of aligning creativity, aligning expressions and there isn't all of this but if it's a collective like if it's a collective argument or interest of the people to see we want to move this way, we don't want to get this kind of content, we don't want our children, our people to be opposed to this kind of content, then you can then filter that beyond that, I think that world government can physically make the laws and protect institutions' data. So what would be your own definition of using the internet responsibly as we go into 2024 as we're marking this day, this year? Yeah, so like I would say using the internet responsibly is using it in a harmless way in a way that it's not harmful to you and it's not harmful to other. Like I said in the work on the fundamental human rights for instance, this is a right to life to tell you and they actually and so that means that you do not for instance go online to work on a disability because if you yourself find yourself in that situation, you wouldn't like it, you wouldn't want people straight to that way, you can go online and spread misinformation or disinformation about people because you don't want people to also say wrong things about you. In fact, when we're talking about the case of thick news, we also have to understand that information is also critical to the nation building the country that we have and you see the fake news like an umbrella term for both misinformation, disinformation and malinformation and we see a lot of and we saw a lot of this misinformation disinformation and malinformation in the previous election cycle and then why the political NTS used that as a means of getting their own party or trying to convince or trying to convince people to go for that party what it actually does when you use internet that way is that you also reduce the quality of the citizen's knowledge because now you're misinforming people getting the wrong knowledge so the knowledge that they should have gained they have missed the opportunity to gain that knowledge, you are fragmented from them and so you now have created citizens and so that way it's also helpful to work on international development and then also for you I mean like you say what goes around comes around so if you don't use it safely it will be safer for other people it will also be safe for you as well so responsibly I mean that visit in a way that you would want ideally how you actually want it to be and then also very important responsibly is do not put that your information sporadically anyhow on the internet from sources that you are not certain of from sources that in fact I think you're right so I'm saying don't just give out your information and always find ways to protect yourself beyond that we don't read the fine print, we never do we just agree they say give a black man a book and you can just have conditions how many people read terms and conditions you just agree because if you don't agree do you have alternatives to these things we don't know but I don't know if every year has a theme for this for celebration of SAVA internet does every year have to have a team yes every year does this work on a heavy team what's the theme for this year hello what's the theme for this year if it has a theme oh yeah so what's the theme for this year we're just trying to remember when you're asking the question but yes this year actually does have a team and it's not really sticking to my head so far so good anyways the goal is for us to be safe on the internet so I mean thank you for coming and sharing your valuable contributions for people to be safe and I know you're from unguvo collective so I'm sure there are ways you guys are trying to drive a positive change for people to be aware of these things right yes of course so in guvo collective it's just a collection of sharing ideas across Nigeria, across Africa, across the world and in different areas trying to create that change so like myself here working in civic space, working on the internet as well as a digital right, I've been protecting working on the civic space to ensure that citizens are safe, then we have other people like Alima who is actually working creating a good change around mental health and they will also be working around combating working on genital mutilation and a whole lot of others working on education so that's how we call ourselves in guvo collective because we think that our community to work on the nationwide level that's fantastic, thank you so much thank you for your commitment to this thank you for the change that you're driving and we appreciate you, thank you so much for joining us today on our program thank you very much for having me thank you alright so we've been talking about how to keep your community safe and we've been speaking to Victor Tehemba, yes we've been talking about a safer internet day but yes we'll go on a short break and when we return we'll be looking at our next hot topic thank you