Online etiquette and the correct way to behave on social media will be the focus of a major youth conference opening in Bahrain next week.

The seventh International Youth Conference is set to bring together media figures, policymakers and developers with the aim of discussing the positive and negative effects of social media use, said report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

Organised by the General Organisation for Youth and Sport (Goys) under the theme 'Media and Youth Culture', the event has been designed for 18 to 25-year-olds and will be held at the Crowne Plaza's Bahrain Conference Centre over three days from March 10 to March 12.

“We chose this title for this year's edition because we noticed that many young people now tend to adopt 'wrong' behaviour online by sharing negative social and religious thoughts on social media, with some thinking that this is freedom of speech,” said the conference's scientific committee head Musaad Salman.

“An example of how people misuse social media is the amount of 'selfie' pictures shared by them while driving, even after the new traffic law was implemented.

“Some also attack people through social media without checking their facts, and it becomes too late by the time they discover that what they posted was factually wrong.”

As a good example of how to behave online, the conference organisers chose a number of influential social media figures to be speakers at the event.

“The conference can't only focus on the negative impacts of social media and therefore we have invited social media entrepreneurs to share the way they promoted their ideas and became famous,” said Salman.

“We invited a number of them from Bahrain and other GCC countries, as well as His Majesty King Hamad's media adviser Nabeel Al Hamar as he is one of the most active people on social media in Bahrain.”

Registration for the conference is free for Bahrainis and non-Bahrainis and can be done through www.goys.gov.bh until Saturday (March 7). - TradeArabia News Service