After its successful launch in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, #TweeSurfing is making it’s grand opening in Kolkata tomorrow, i.e. 22nd of September, 2018. #TweeSurfing is the first cyber safety workshop organized by Centre for Social Research, an organization working towards gender justice and a more egalitarian society in collaboration with Twitter, a global social media platform. The launch will be graced by the presence of some of the eminent speakers such as Dr. Ranjana Kumari, Director of Centre for Social Research, New Delhi, Mr. Harish Iyer , LGBTQI activist from Mumbai, Ms. Manasi Salvi, TV actor from Mumbai and Mr. Rahul Rajkhowa, singer from Guwahati and Jimmy Tangree, a radio jockey from Kolkata.
The initiative has brought 90 influencers from diverse fields and interviewed them on their Twitter journey and their perspectives on the safety mechanisms for diverse issues on social media. Among the influencers were Anupam Kher, Shashi Tharoor, Shreyas Talpade, Priyanka Chaturvedi, RJ Malishka, Khurafati Nitin, Sorabh Pant, Rohan Joshi and many more. These interviews are easily accessible via the twitter handle @TweeSurfing and the web resource www.TweeSurfing.in.
In the current cyber society, where people are connected through multiple social media platforms, it is essential for the netizens to know the correct netiquettes. It would help them to counter online frauds, hate speech and cyber trolling. Keeping in mind the need for appropriate education in this area, Centre for Social Research and Twitter India have designed the TweeSurfing workshops. The Tweesurfing workshops aspires and attempts to use the platform through active participation. The goal of this programme is to create a culture of positive gender sensitive and safe environment on Twitter, by promoting use of counter speech, sensitive campaigns and listing user-driven best practices. It also aims to tackle issues relating to online abuse and harassment directly, by making Twitter Rules and Tools, and the work being done by @TwitterSafety, accessible to all users. TweeSurfing workshops have reached to farthest corners of the country, from rural areas like Erode to cities like Guwahati and also to small towns in Jammu and Kashmir. Users of social media have benefitted immensely from this program and have contributed though their interaction to the program as well through sharing their knowledge.
Since 2016, Centre for Social Research has collaborated with Twitter to launch #TweeSurfing, a Twitter Literacy program designed to spread knowledge on how to use the platform for better purposes. It intends to initiate to the cyber conversation on how the users can have a positive online presence by maximizing the use of twitter for social good.
