Challenge
Migrant workers in Thailand face abuse and exploitation at all stages of the migration process and in all facets of life. Limited knowledge of their rights is not the only reason why the majority of workers are unwilling/unable to report violations or seek redress of grievances, another major reason is, in many cases, proven distrust in institutions and governance.
According to ILO’s regional analysis of the five-year of data collected on migrant workers within South-East Asia from 2011 to 2015, only 0.1% of 6.9 million migrant workers in the region utilized official complaint mechanisms and the majority of these cases were dropped without any form of remedy being obtained.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, incidents of abuse and exploitation of migrant workers by employers have increased sharply with many of the workers interviewed by Sidekick with support from CSO partners saying they have gone unpaid for months and/or have been threatened with job losses. On top of job security, the workers are also very worried about access to health services during the pandemic especially COVID testing and treatment.
Solving the Digital Literacy Conundrum
We conducted an audience behaviour study and found that today’s internet users can be divided into three groups:
digital natives, digital migrants and baby boomers.
Based on analysis of our study we created targeted, customised content towards each demographic group, employing nostalgic marketing and human-centered strategies.
Targeted research-based content
Digital Natives
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Spend over 10 hrs/day online
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Native speakers of the digital language of computers, social media and video games
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Understand password security and two-step verification
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Most prone to oversharing e.g. personal info, private moments and real-time location
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Favour peer-to-peer communication
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At risk of identity theft
Digital Migrants
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Spend 8-9 hrs/day online (mostly for work)
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Acquired familiarity with digital systems as an adult
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Use email and LINE to communicate for work
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Spend free time on Facebook and online shopping
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Believe in statistics and numbers from reliable sources
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At risk of being hacked and scammed
Baby Boomers
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Spend 2-4 hrs/day online
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Spent most of their lives in analogue and only picked up digital tools very late in their lives
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Consume “news” on LINE and enjoy sharing articles with family and friends
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Prefer LINE to other social media platforms because it is considered the least “messy and complicated”
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At risk of believing and sharing fake news
Staying safe is as easy as 1-2-3
1. Digital Natives
Informed by our research, we developed personal stories, easily digestible infographics, behind the scenes interviews and comics to engage digital natives with the very real dangers of over sharing, spam accounts and stolen identities.
A true story told by a digital native about her virtual identity being taken away due to oversharing, reaching 383,000 viewers.
"Stolen"
2. Digital Migrants
Digital migrants make up the majority of the workforce, the majority of online spending and, therefore, the majority of those being scammed, especially through Facebook and Instagram.
Our research found that despite engaging in almost all facets of the internet, they have little interest in protecting their data, leaving them vulnerable to identity theft, hacks, phishing attacks and other forms of scams. Due to their tendency to believe statistics and facts and credible sources, one of the most popular content items for digital migrants was an interview with a cyber-law expert, reaching 136,500 individual viewers.
"Are you staying safe and secure online?"
A cyber law expert explains cyber-security and common threats to watch out for.
3. Baby Boomers
Seniors in Thailand have definitely embraced technology, however, through SideKick's research as well as information from the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, Baby Boomer's lack of digital literacy has made them susceptibility to consuming and sharing fake news.
SideKick therefore, employed a range of strategies from fact-checking how-tos to a family friendly reaction and self help videos with the goal to raise the digital proficiency of baby boomers.
Based on our findings that baby boomers favour LINE over other social media platforms we partnered with 10 influencer groups to increase our reach. The content they chose to share revealed their preference for digital greeting card-style images, infographics and tip-style posts.
Conclusion
1,079,000
771,442
17,441
people reached
video views
shares, likes and comments
Videos overwhelmingly outperformed other mediums in all three demographic groups in both reach and engagement, accounting for over 70% of the total reach.
We conducted interviews with supporters and Facebook fan page members and discovered that the campaign had indeed succeeded in emphasising the severity, and very real existence, of digital literacy. Each demographic group expressed an intention to change their digital behaviours; from reducing live sharing habits and identifying secure ways of accessing personal and sensitive information, to relying more on creditable sources for news and information. SideKick will work with Internews in distilling the lessons learnt from this project to help partners develop their own local campaigns.