The Youth DECLARATION OF DIGITAL RIGHTS

 From designitforus.org

We the young people who have been addicted, manipulated, and taken advantage of by Big Tech, produce this Declaration of Digital Rights.

DECLARATION OF DIGITAL RIGHTS

The following principles represent the ideals of our generation. Our development as children, adolescents, teens, and young adults is fundamentally intertwined with technology. As a result, we know intimately the benefits and downfalls of such tools we use daily. Our experience is expertise, and we believe it can help us capture a better future on and offline.

1. Right to privacy

Social media platforms collect endless amounts of data on us. Young people have the right to scroll without Big Tech listening to them on every corner of the internet and selling off that data to the highest bidder. Companies should be responsible for designing social media and AI products that consistently protect and preserve our personal data. Privacy must come before profit.

2. Right to safety

There are so many features that social media uses to keep us hooked. Some of those features have proven to be detrimental to young people’s mental health or put our safety at risk. Like seatbelts in cars, it is our right as consumers that companies build their products with us in mind. We demand they proactively keep us safe from their harmful products and business practices.

3. Right to not be experimented on

Social media and technology companies are constantly rolling out new features on their platforms and products. They use young people as test subjects. Young people are no longer the guinea pigs to be experimented on. Young people have a right to not be tested on by Big Tech without allowing us to provide informed consent.

4. Right to agency

Social media can be a beautiful place. It links us to people all over the world, brings us closer to community, and shapes our understanding of the world. But with power comes responsibility. Young people have the right to options provided by platforms that allow us to take back control over our digital lives so we can minimize the bad and maximize the good.

5. Right to user controls

Suggested posts in feed, new shop features, algorithms, endless scrolling, and never-ending push notifications. Whether you like them or hate them, young people have the right to switch the most harmful features on or off, whenever we choose.

6. Right to delete

As consumers of digital products, young people have a right to permanently delete our own content and leave social media platforms that are not working for us. Social media platforms should uphold that right, delete our information, and leave us alone. The right to our personal information is solely ours, not social media companies’.

7. Right to choice

One or more social media platforms may not be working for young people. Young people have the right to choose from an array of products, apps, or sites we want to use as alternatives, not just whatever the biggest Big Tech players choose for us.

8. Right to a seat at the table

Increasingly, it seems like decisions about young people’s digital lives are being made by stakeholders, lawmakers, and communities that don’t represent them. Young people have a right to a seat at the decision-maker’s table.

9. Right to connect

One of the most valuable parts of social media is the ability to connect with our friends and family, and build community. When Big Tech clogs up our feeds with targeted ads and body-comparison content, it’s antithetical to everything we want out of social media. We have a right to build vital relationships online that are not mutually exclusive with a forced acceptance that our identities are Big Tech’s revenue stream.

10. Right to transparency

Big Tech has thrived off of the presumption that they are above the law. They leverage their power as private companies to profit from our pain, by design, while shielding themselves in opacity. Like any other public goods, we as consumers have a right to fair and transparent products that are responsible to the user and the law, not the shareholders nor the CEOs. 

11. Right to accountability

Young people are stepping up to establish innovative legislative solutions that address our needs. Yet, at every turn, Big Tech blocks meaningful legislation to protect their own monetary interests. We demand that our government be accountable to their constituents, not the companies that pay to manipulate legislation.

12. Right to be protected from manipulation

Like never before, Big Tech has relentlessly leveraged innovation against the best interests of users, manipulating our data and weaponizing our well being against us. Instead of crafting design features meant to support healthy engagement, Big Tech companies have wielded their unchecked power to addict us and harm us while publicly saying otherwise. We have a right to be shielded from these insidious patterns of abuse.