Internet Safety for Kids & Families

What's Your Story Video Contest

What's Your Story video contest winners

The first annual “What’s Your Story” video contest has come to an end. We challenged anyone over the age of 13 to create a video educating people about the dangers on the Internet and how best to stay safe.

Contestants were asked to submit videos no greater than 2 minutes in length in one of four categories:

Keeping a good rep online
Accessing (legal) age-appropriate content
Staying clear of unwanted contact
Keeping the cybercriminals out

The final winners were selected by a judging panel with representatives from Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely, the Identity Theft Resource Center, and Trend Micro.

Meet the Winners:

Grand Prize:
"Overexposed"

Soon after we finished filming, we were using Facebook much more conservatively than before, and it's only done more good than harm. We hope those who watched the video were able to internalize the message. We stress the word "internalize" because, like recycling or eating healthy food, "keeping a good rep online" must be a habit in order to be effective.
Category Winner: Accessing (legal) content that’s age-appropriate
"Perfectly Legal and Age Appropriate"

The inspiration for the video is that we're scared to death about our kids and the Internet, and how things will be when they get as old as some of the young people who entered the contest. So we thought, "Okay, what if we made a video that would be along the lines of 'guidelines for Internet use that are so easy a 4-year-old could figure them out'? If nothing else, when our kids do get to be teens, we can dust this video off and say, "Hey, follow your own advice from back in 2010."
Category Winner: Keeping a good rep online
"Flame Fart Kid"

We thought about a lot of the stupid stuff we actually did in middle school (this was before YouTube!) and how happy we were that we were unable to put that stuff online. With the internet, things in the ancient past can resurface now, and we think it's a good lesson to think about what you're posting. Our goal was to create something that was entertaining and able to draw a younger audience in, and I think there are some signs that that worked.
Category Winner: Keeping the Cybercriminals Out
"Special Report: Behind the Modem"

We had collectively received tons of spam and email scams over the years and we were wondering what the people behind the emails would be like if they were real. We decided to create caricatures of them that we could use in a mock news report that would hopefully make people aware of the utter ridiculousness of buying into these scams to begin with.
Category Winner: Staying away from unwanted contact
"Pull the Plug On Bullying"

We know that technology has changed the face of bullying. Though traditional and covert bullying still exist, technology has given birth to a cybersociety and with it cyberbullying. Cybervictims have no safe haven from the cyberbully who can torment the victim with the stroke of a few keys. We felt that cyberbullying needed to be addressed and we wanted to show that [it] has a devastating impact on the victim.