Following the reports of two Sri Lankan students committing suicide over issues involving the popular social media network Facebook, the government is preparing to raise awareness among the country’s school children and their parents on the ethical and safe usage of social media like Facebook, Twitter etc.

AdaderanaBiz learns that the Telecommunication and Information Technology Ministry of Sri Lanka is hastily making preparations together with the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) to launch this programme within the next two weeks.

While elaborating on this programme, a CERT spokesman told the AdaderanaBiz, “This awareness programme will be held in all the schools in the island. A guideline on how to raise awareness among the students through the usual morning assemblies will be prepared for the principals. Meanwhile, two separate video presentations for the students and their parents will be prepared outlining how to use the social media websites.”

Apart from schools, these awareness campaigns will also be carried out by the media.

While currently there are over two million Facebook accounts registered in Sri Lanka, the number of complaints to the Computer Emergency Readiness Team is increasing daily.

Recently, two female students of schools in Sri Lanka committed suicide over certain issues that they had allegedly encountered through Facebook.