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“The lawsuits serve as a good place to see where a lot of this is happening,” said Zamaan Qureshi, co-chair of the youth-led coalition Design It For Us, a digital safety advocacy group. “We have all this new information and evidence … I think the tide has turned, or the temperature has changed.”

On January 31, 2024, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary will hold a hearing on online child sexual exploitation with CEOs from Meta, X, TikTok, Snap, and Discord. In advance of the hearing, Issue One and Tech Policy Press organized a virtual forum with a group of independent researchers, advocates, and representatives from child and online safety groups — most of them members of Issue One’s Council for Responsible Social Media (CRSM) — to discuss potential questions for lawmakers to pose to the CEOs. 

Design It for Us, which comprises activists from 18 to 26 years old, told Axios it worked with young people in the group and outside content creators to craft submissions. The group is calling on the government to require platforms to incorporate safety into their product designs by default, address “surveillance” advertising, make platforms deprioritize algorithms that addict users, and give users control of their personal information.

Design It For Us, a youth-led organization that advocates for safer online environments, say approaches like that give companies a “free pass” and put the weight of responsibility on parents’ vigilance.

Zamaan Qureshi, co-chair of the Design It for Us coalition, said the proposed rules, which are subject to a 60-day public comment period before the FTC votes on them, “will make kids and teens much safer online.”

Zamaan Qureshi, co-chair of Design It For Us, a youth-led coalition pushing for product changes and regulation of social media, said the unsealed documents show that senior Meta executives sometimes confronted the same barriers that concerned rank-and-file employees did.

Zamaan Qureshi, chair of the digital activist group Design it for Us, said: “Clegg’s comments follow a pattern at Meta where employees repeatedly flagged under-investment in well-being tools… now we know not even senior leadership could get through to Zuckerberg.”

Zamaan Qureshi, co-chair of Design It For Us, a youth-led coalition pushing for product changes and regulation of social media, said the unsealed documents show that senior Meta executives sometimes confronted the same barriers that concerned rank-and-file employees did.

They are armed with data to support why we need such laws, including the 60% surge in teen suicides and Gen Z’s rampant battle with anxiety and depression. Zamaan Qureshi, an American University senior and co-founder of Design It For Us, describes it as “a mental health emergency largely driven by the addictive design of social media.”

Youth-centered organizations, including Design It For Us and Encode Justice, recently sent a letter to Congress and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, calling to include more young people in discussions on AI governance.