No social media presence

Public exposure in social media all too often attracts unwanted attention, aggression and even hate.
Most adults have a hard time dealing with that. That's not what we want for our children.

During lockdown we held many talks. We heard many opinions, we reconsidered established routines.
And we came to a number of conclusions. It is important to explain some of them.
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In our early days, member families occasionally featured in newspaper and magazine articles.
They experienced two kinds of consequences.
One, that other parents approached them with the request to organize partner families for them too, hoping to take a short-cut around the application procedure. They had to decline; of course they would have much preferred not to have been asked to do something like that at all.
And, even more troubling, a number of kids were bullied for being featured in the media and for their international connections. Some of their peers mistook their eagerness to learn and their curiosity for elitism. They - quite unfairly - thought they were up themselves and so the bullies took steps to "bring them down". That's why we decided eight years ago that we would no longer introduce Global Native families to the public.

Names and (some) places in our case studies have been changed accordingly. 
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The pandemic and the current climate - both political and social - have ​caused a great number of individuals on social media to adopt a very aggressive tone towards people who don't think like them. There are folks with truly disturbing conspiracy theories, there are folks who believe in all kinds of worrying ideas on the origins of the virus, there are racists, sexists, homophobic fanatics, Greta-haters and militant anti-vaxxers. We live in an era of hostile intolerance. For this reason, we have now completely withdrawn from all social media platforms as an organization. There are considerably better ways of preparing our children for the not-so-nice sides of life.

Global Natives are open-minded families with a passion for science, happy to invest time and effort to study and learn. But we refuse to be drawn into futile online disputes based on weird arguments; we refuse to be harassed for taking a pragmatic approach to the pandemic and for respecting the opinions of expert virologists.
​We really do not believe that Bill Gates wants to eliminate us all through vaccines nor do we fear to be controlled by reptilians or illuminati. As dedicated parents and education-enthusiasts we have better things to do with our time than do verbal battle with folks who're quite resistant to reason and scientific evidence.
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​Our members are on social media as they think fit, they connect there too.
However, as a community and as a brand, we have decided against any exposure to hate or derision.
​We offer solidarity and backing within the network whenever an individual outspoken member needs it. And we provide a haven of safety and civilized dialogue for our children.

​In this half-minute commercial Billie makes it quite clear why she doesn't show her body. She has no intention to expose herself to the judgement of the public. Kudos for going her own way!

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This New York Times article by the excellent Kashmir Hill illustrates an aspect of social media abuse worth keeping in mind: ​Web of Vengeance.