That's cool

... or rather, thatsnotcool.

Back in February 2009, the The Family Violence Prevention Fund, in partnership with the Advertising Council and the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence against Women, announced the launch of an advertising campaign designed to helps teens recognise digital dating abuse and take steps to prevent it.

Although a US campaign, the site - http://www.thatsnotcool.com/ - contains messages and advice which translate well internationally, and judging by the comments on the site, it's going down well with its target audience.

Teens are presented with videos demonstrating three problems centering around digital privacy and harassment. Both sides of each story are presented in a funny and non-patronising way (I think, but my teenage years are a long way behind me), and viewers are given the opportunity to vote on the best course of action. The really cool thing is that when you go on to view the second side of the story, your choice influences what you see.

For example, the video about textual abuse describes a situation in which the main character (a woolly-haired sock puppet, but that's not important) is being hassled by his girlfriend constantly sending text messages to find out where he is, what he's doing and who he's with. Understandably feeling pressured by this invasion of privacy, he seeks our help with what to do about it. Our options are...

a) You have no choice. Tell her your phone is broken.
b) Tell her she needs to trust you and give you more space.
c) Move away and work on a horse ranch.

Just for fun (honest!) I selected option a) then watched the video detailing the other side of the story - which included how her boyfriend had lied about his phone being broken.

There are also videos called "Pressure pic problem" and "The break in" which describe the pressure to send naked pictures, and snooping on social networking sites. Again, both sides of the story are presented and viewers are given the option to choose courses of action.

The videos are a bit of fun, but with a valuable message to teens not to put up with this kind of behaviour and advice on how to deal with it. There are forums which allow the audience to exchange stories and advice. Users are invited to make their own videos to communicate these issues on YouTube, which may then be featured on the site.

One of the key features is the "Callout Cards" section, which enables people to send pre-programmed messages in emails, Facebook or MySpace. I can see the appeal of this, but some of the messages are a touch passive-agressive sounding for my taste, for example "Thanks for helping me exceed my text message limit" and "Sorry I waited a whopping 2 minutes to respond to your IM".

I like the fact that these issues are being dealt with. Although as an industry we (quite rightly) pay a lot of time and attention to child safety and abuse issues, it's imperative that we focus on helping people to deal with other forms of digital and privacy abuse.