In the inaugural episode of 'Digital Dominoes,' host Angeline 'Data Girl' Corvaglia aims to guide listeners through the intricacies of digital world safety and information sharing. Featured guests include Digital Defender Stella, an elementary school student interested in AI, and John Cavanaugh (Jet Haze), Executive Director of the Plunk Foundation. Together, they discuss the implications of sharing personal information online, the concept of digital footprints, the impact of AI on privacy, and strategies to avoid online risks. They emphasize the importance of careful online identity management, especially for children, and highlight how interconnected digital platforms shape personal narratives and perceptions. This episode offers valuable insights and practical tips for staying safe in today's digital world.

Tune in now to hear about these topics both from a child's and privacy expert's perspective on digital safety.

00:00 Introduction to Digital Dominoes

00:41 Meet the Guests: Digital Defender Stella and Jet Haze

01:28 Understanding the Digital World

03:10 The Importance of Online Privacy

07:13 The Impact of Digital Footprints

08:18 AI and Data Privacy

10:57 Personalized Content and Online Safety

15:07 Final Thoughts and Takeaways

Special thanks to

John Cavanaugh and the Plunk Foundation, thank you for participating in this episode! Find out more at: https://www.plunkfoundation.org/

Digital Defender Stella and her parents for letting her participate in this episode and for proactively helping her learn about these very important topics!

Episode sponsored by Data Girl and Friends

They are on a mission to build awareness and foster critical thinking about AI, online safety, privacy, and digital citizenship. Through fun, engaging, and informative content, they inspire the next generation to navigate the digital world confidently and responsibly. They focus on empowering young digital citizens and their families through engaging and informative learning.

Find out more at https://data-girl-and-friends.com/

List of Data Girl and Friends materials about some of the topics covered:

• Article for young teens about the topics discussed in this episode: https://data-girl-and-friends.com/a-guide-to-online-safety-and-privacy/
• Educational workbook, "Guardians of Your Data: Learn how to protect your information online!" https://data-girl-and-friends.pagetiger.com/data-guardians/

Contact us for any questions or comments: https://digi-dominoes.com/contact-us/ 

The music for this episode is These Times from Blue Dot Sessions

[00:00:27] The information and tips we're giving you here will help you not only stay safe on the internet but also thrive. Today we're going to talk about sharing information about ourselves online. What is safe to share? What we should be careful about and why. I have two very special guests today. One is Digital Defender Stella, an elementary school student who loves learning about AI and the digital world.

[00:01:14] I'm excited. Wonderful. I'm, I'm excited to see what we discover in this first episode of Digital Dominoes. So Stella, are you excited to be on this show? Yes. Thank you. Do you know what the digital world is? No. Well, do you know what it means to be online? Yeah. Well, that's the digital world.

[00:01:53] Yeah, I think one way to view the digital world is that now over the past couple of years, it's been an extension of who we are. So, in school, when you get a job one day. And you're working, you will always be a part and have a digital footprint or an identity online. Some of that can be anonymous, like Jet Haze, as an example.

[00:03:10] Yeah, a lot of times if you're using your full name and it goes for everybody, really, if you want to use your full name online, there are repercussions that come with that. And some people are better at handling that than others, and you want to be careful. When it comes to, if you're a child, such as Stella, and you're using your full name, there are lots of people who can take advantage of that situation.

[00:04:02] And if you want to stay safe online, it's best not to have all of that information available very easily. Does that make sense to you, Stella? No. No. Well, I appreciate your honesty. Well, let me ask you a different way. Do you know what social media is? No. Well, you know what Facebook is, right? Yeah. My dad always watches it.

[00:05:24] Yes, it makes more sense Data Girl. Thank you and another thing that Jet said he was talking about bullying. Do you know what bullying is? No. You are very lucky not to know that. Yeah. That is a true blessing, uh, not to know that because it's something that usually at some point everyone has to go through and that's when people they're just mean to you for no reason.

[00:06:31] Yeah, very true. There's also something really interesting about online versus in person as well to your point Data Girl, is the fact that if you are in a physical place, if you're at your home, or if you're at school. Or if you're at a friend's house and something bad happens, you can leave, but online and all the information that you put out there stays forever.

[00:07:27] Another thing that's really interesting about what Jet said before. He talked about a digital footprint. And there was one Data Girl video about digital footprints. That anything you do online, that stays there, as Jet said. Can you imagine if you were doing your homework and you made a mistake and you couldn't fix it, it's just there, the mistake? Yeah. Every mistake that you make in your homework will stay there forever, like the pen doesn't erase. Yeah, like an unerasable pen. That's right. So the mistakes online are like the unerasable pens.

[00:08:09] That's why you have to be very careful. Because online is not paper. Online is not paper. That's right. It has a memory. It has an endless memory. Mm hmm. And another thing you might know about, since you're such a big fan of AI and online safety, if a person spends a lot of time online, the more time they spend, the more stuff they do, the more information that they get.

[00:08:57] She told me before, and I was just really impressed though, because that is really important information. Um, do you want to tell us more about that from a privacy perspective? Yeah, so AI has the ability to take all of the information, like we talked about in your digital footprint, because a lot of the websites such as Facebook, social media sites, Google, even Microsoft, Adobe, pretty much anything you want to use on your tablet.

[00:09:55] Yeah. So it's just a mix. Sometimes they have the wrong puzzle pieces in order. Yeah, that's true. I mean, can you imagine if someone thinks that you're different than you really are? Like, this is a simple, it's a relatively simple thing. When you watch TV, what do you watch? Disney, Netflix, or Prime Video. So when you open Disney, you have some, some pictures on the TV, right?

[00:10:42] No, they see different things. That's right. On YouTube or Facebook, they see, everyone sees the same thing. Do you want to comment on that, Jett? Yeah, actually, you would be surprised. It's different for everybody on YouTube, as well as Facebook. So Facebook is surrounded by what your likes and interests are, and the friends you, you can connect with various friends.

[00:11:35] I would like to play with them. Okay. Do you have a favorite food? Yeah. What is it? Pasta. Okay, so let's say you have on YouTube, you've been watching pasta videos on how to make pasta the best pasta in Italy as an example. But, let's say Jet doesn't like pasta. John loves pasta, but let's say Jet does not like pasta.

[00:12:23] And that's actually one of the more important things to know, that whatever information you give, what everything you do online is going to show you something different. And you could easily think like Jet could think nobody in this world likes pasta. Why does pasta even exist? And you could think everybody in the world is only talking about pasta, and the both of you meet and you start talking and you think that you're living in different worlds. So, that's really important to know and all of that comes from what you've done, the information that you've given online. And one thing that's really interesting too is that something you do on Facebook, for example, or in your Google search or on your iPad can travel through the other apps as well.

[00:13:39] Some videos are real and some videos are just invented. That's true. And it's hard to tell the difference sometimes, right? Yeah. Well, that's the safe thing about Disney. Usually you can tell on Disney what's invented and what's true, but on YouTube it's a different story. You make it see that it's real. On a Netflix, they, they make it see if it's real or not, but not on YouTube or Facebook.

[00:14:29] Typically on social media and YouTube, there can be a lot of fake videos or misinformation about what somebody said, about facts, about those types of things. On Netflix and Disney and various things like that, most of like a documentary or something will have a lot of research and informed things.

[00:15:06] Yeah. So now we're coming to the end. So I want to ask you, Stella, to tell us, what did you learn today? One of the important things, if you would go right out, go to the park and tell your friends, I just had this great conversation. I learned all about being online and sharing information or not sharing information.

[00:16:00] You don't share where you live unless you know them. If you know them, you can. If you don't know them, you can't, because you don't know them. You don't know if they're, if they're bandits, like AI bandits, or if they're just normal people. You don't know that. That's right. I think that's a very simple rule.

[00:16:52] We really want to know what you think. Do you agree or disagree? What are your experiences with your children and youth in your life? Please let us know and we'll see you in the next episode. Thank you, both of you. Thank you, and I just want to commend Stella for the knowledge that you have at your age to learn all about your digital footprint and understanding the difference between online and real life and understanding how AI works.

[00:17:43] That's right. The stories are just for listening. No video. So I could not think of a better advertisement for Data Girl than what you just said. I think I'm going to have to reproduce that. Thank you so much, Stella. And there's also a kind of Facebook, but just about, about the safety of being on AI or data.

[00:18:35] There's videos, games, stories. That's right. You're talking about the Data Girl and Friends website. Sorry, I was a little bit lost. Yeah. Look at, I have a marketing. I, I don't, Datagirl has a new marketing manager here. Yeah, that's right. It's the Datagirl and friends website with all that stuff. We'll, we'll add all the links to what Stella is very kindly saying in the show notes.

[00:19:33] Well, it's on Vimeo now, and there's no commercials on Vimeo. So, any parents out here listening, you can watch Dated Girl and Friends on Vimeo. Awesome. There's no commercials. I watch it too, Stella. Yeah. It's great. Yeah, it is. So, thanks again and have a wonderful rest of the day. Bye Take care. Thank you for coming, Jet. Thanks for having me, Stella and Data Girl.