Safer Internet day 2008 was celebrated all over Denmark – offline as well as online. A wide selection of libraries in different regions of Denmark marked the day with safer internet initiatives. The event was celebrated widely online among Danish internet users also, where the most popular online communities for children and young people in Denmark participated with virtual celebrations of the day. The online community ‘Cyberhus’ celebrated the event in another area of Denmark, initiating a digital image workshop for children. A direct webcam connection was made between these two SID events for the participants to see each other. A viral safer internet campaign targeting youngsters was launched on the same day on MySpace, YouTube and Arto. As for educational purposes the internet guide book ‘Become a Sh@rk on the internet’ was re-launched with 50,000 copies in a revised edition, digital teaching materials in web ethics were published and a letter to all Danish schools promoting the material was sent out.

On the day, The Danish Media Council celebrated the event at the science museum, the Experimentarium, in Copenhagen. As the 12th of February is in the Danish school winter holiday, the museum was busy with children, parents and grandparents that day. A Safer Internet Day area was set up at the museum and here the actual event took place. The stage was set for children to explore life online and the participating organisations were ready with good advice about what to make of it. With free online access, a huge widescreen displaying digital teasers on the subject, live reports by teenage journalists, a rap concert, an award event for best contributions to the competition, Safer Internet Day 2008 caught the attention of the visitors.

The common goal of the partaking organisations was to open up a dialogue between children and adults about life online and the various experiences and thoughts this brings along. The computers were well visited and the invited representatives from Danish social networking sites and child organisations offered their expertise to the visitors. Often it was just a matter of listening – many of the representatives experienced a need and an enthusiasm on behalf of the children for simply engaging in conversation with adults about their online life.

National winners of the competition ‘your online life is what you make of it’ were present on the day and their contributions were displayed for all the visitors of the event to see. The proud producers of the winning contributions were celebrated at a short award event, and interviewed about the process and their thoughts on life online.

Results from a newly conducted survey made through the collaboration between The Media Council and Aalborg University were presented for the first time, and some of the most relevant findings were displayed at the huge screen in the centre of the event.  The survey deals with children’s online life and the results underlined the actuality of the intent of the day, as it found that almost 65% of the children in the survey had never talked with their parents about their life online. But it also made a positive statement, finding that 2/3 of the children had never experienced anything uncomfortable online. Also, the survey found, that for most of the children participating in the survey their online life was a prolongation of their physical world, as most of their online friends were friends they knew IRL.

As the highlight of the day, a young rap artist caught the admiring eyes of the children from the stage. The rap artist performed, among others, a song about life online made by the online counselling site, Cyberhus. Meanwhile, as a background on the stage, the different contributions from the Safer Internet Day competition were displayed.

During the day young teenage journalists interviewed the visitors as well as the different representatives from the organisations taking part. A camera team from the popular Danish online social networking site for children, Netstationen.dk was recording non-stop and the event, covered by the teenage journalist, was transmitted ‘live’ online on the Media Council’s website.