Youth Activists Call for Online Data Regulations

 

By Mariana Meneses

Young people are helping to shape debates over digital rights, platform safety, privacy, surveillance, and access to technology. Across different countries, they are challenging blanket social media bans, demanding stronger regulation, participating in policy discussions and developing practical solutions in areas such as cybersecurity, digital inclusion and responsible technology. We have gathered a small collection of the many recent cases worth knowing about.  

Europe’s Youth-led Movement for Social Media Regulations

In May 2026, Euronews reported that youth activists across Europe were opposing social media bans for minors and calling instead for stronger platform regulation, enforcement of laws such as the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, and greater investment in digital literacy. 

In France, Thomas Yaqoubi Reboul and Noe Hamon of Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim proposed restricting harmful platforms without excluding young users from spaces they see as important for learning, creativity, and connection. Lauren Bond of the Organizing Bureau of European Student School Unions (OBESSU) argued that bans place responsibility on young people while leaving platforms unsafe. Niels Zagema, the Netherlands representative on the European Commission President’s Youth Advisory Board, supported gradual, age-based exposure to digital technologies. In Ireland, Aisling Maloney called for young people to have a role in policymaking, alongside tighter controls on addictive design and data exploitation and better awareness of existing safety tools. 

The Guardian had already reported in December 2025 on the rise of Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim, described as Europe’s first youth-led digital justice movement. Bringing together activists aged 15 to 29, the movement highlights harms including cyber-sexism, surveillance, biased algorithms, misinformation, deepfake pornography, addictive design, and damaging mental-health content, while showing how these risks can fall especially heavily on minorities. The movement supports stronger regulation, public-interest alternatives, protests, coordinated boycotts, and reduced screen time, while seeking to preserve the benefits of social media. Their goal is to redesign digital spaces around rights, accountability, meaningful connection, greater control over personal data, and the principle “Nothing for us, without us.” 

This activism reflects a broader pattern of youth participation across Europe. The European Union’s Eurostat data show that, in 2025, 24.3% of Europeans aged 16–29 participated in online civic or political activity, compared with 20.2% of the EU population overall. In 23 of the EU’s 27 member states, young people were more likely than the general population to engage in online activism, including among the forms of participation expressing opinions online or joining digital consultations and votes.  

Similar forms of youth-led digital activism are also emerging beyond Europe, where young people are challenging surveillance, influencing technology policy, and demanding greater accountability from governments and platforms.

 

 

India’s Youth-led Protest Against AI-powered Surveillance

Reuters reported on July 27, 2026, that Indian activists are challenging the government over AI-powered surveillance deployed during a major youth protest in New Delhi over exam paper leaks. Police used a mobile van equipped with facial-recognition cameras, monitored protesters’ faces, counted attendees, and recorded some participants’ Instagram handles, in a context where India lacks a specific law governing police use of facial recognition. Student activist Aishe Ghosh has asked the Delhi High Court to declare mass surveillance unconstitutional, order the deletion of collected personal data, and establish clear rules for future deployments. The government argues that the measures were lawful and necessary for public order, while digital-rights advocates say they were disproportionate and lacked accountability.  

Philippines Youth Voice AI Concerns to NGOs

From 12 to 14 May 2026, around 30 Filipino teenagers from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao met in Manila for “Yap Sesh on Tech,” a dialogue organized by Child Rights Coalition Asia, ChildFund Philippines, and ChorogUsan for Children under the Pro-Digital LOOP Project. Alongside representatives from TikTok, PLDT, Smart, and civil society, they discussed privacy, data protection, online safety, mental health, artificial intelligence, age verification, parental controls, freedom of expression, internet access, and emerging risks. Drawing on their own experiences, participants examined existing safety tools and proposed ways to make digital platforms more inclusive, child-friendly, and responsive to young users. They also called for young people to have a direct role in designing technologies and shaping social media policies.

 

 

South Korean co-founded ‘Youth for Privacy’

Joon Baek is a South Korean software engineer and Columbia University master’s student specializing in machine learning. He co-founded Youth for Privacy, has advocated for privacy rights at UN forums, contributed to UN disarmament initiatives, and seeks to combine technology and policy to promote inclusive digital governance. UNESCO’s Global AI Ethics and Governance Observatory presents Youth for Privacy as a youth-led organization that promotes privacy, responsible technology, and data protection through education, outreach, research, and advocacy. Its members are mainly students and young professionals, and its work focuses on youth advocacy and education.

The group is part of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU’s) AI Skills Coalition, which provides workshops on privacy in AI systems, has trained young privacy advocates through the Data Values Bootcamp with the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, and recently launched an anti-facial-recognition fashion project designed to deter surveillance. 

Burkinabè to Expand Cybersecurity Across Africa

At age 14, Burkina Faso resident and cybersecurity enthusiast Yann Harris Charbel Siry developed YamCyber, a platform designed to make cybersecurity accessible across Africa. It consists of a web application that he first imagined at age nine. Designed to combat cybercrime across the continent, it provides awareness courses, expert advice, simulations, security alerts, scam detection, and YamBot, a multilingual assistant that supports users in French, English, Mooré, and Dioula. YamCyber has already earned first place in the 9-17 category at FIPEG-FASO and the “Adolescent Revelation” award. Yann also created an educational-label initiative that displays six simple cybersecurity recommendations in more than thirteen universities across Burkina Faso. He hopes to expand the project to other African countries, public institutions, and private companies.  

His long-term goal is to become a major cybersecurity actor in Africa and bring together other young innovators to support the continent’s development. Built around local risks such as Mobile Money, WhatsApp, and social media fraud, YamCyber adapts its guidance to users’ countries rather than simply translating existing materials. Currently available online, with a mobile app in development, the platform aims to become a leading African cybersecurity resource by 2028. As a member of a youth association working against cybercrime, he also participates in awareness campaigns with Burkina Faso’s Central Brigade for Combating Cybercrime.

 

 

These exemplary cases are part of a broader generation of youth-led projects gaining international support and visibility. One platform highlighting this work is the Young Activists Summit, which recognizes every year young leaders who are turning concerns about technology, rights, and inclusion into concrete action around the world. 

Young Activists Summit (YAS)

According to their website, the Young Activists Summit (YAS) is “a global platform that empowers and supports young change-makers defending human rights and the environment. YAS culminates in a Summit every year that honors five Laureates at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, during a live event that brings together thousands of young people, online and onsite.”

 

 

The 2025 Young Activists Summit supported five Laureates working on digital inclusion, water conservation, healthcare access, youth participation, and technology education. Each received 20,000 Swiss francs, training, institutional connections, and international visibility, while YAS continued assisting former Laureates through funding, media exposure, and access to influential networks. 

The five 2025 Laureates were: 

• Aminata Savané (Côte d’Ivoire), for promoting digital inclusion and online safety for women and youth; 

• Dev Karan (India), for combining technology and community action to restore ponds; 

• Marina El Khawand (Lebanon), for improving access to medicines and healthcare through digital innovation;  

• Rena Kawasaki (Japan), for strengthening youth participation in decision-making and public policy; and 

• Salvino Oliveira (Brazil), for expanding access to education and digital skills for marginalized youth.

 

 

Recognition and support can help youth-led projects expand, but many of the policy questions driving this activism remain unresolved. As governments consider new restrictions on children’s social media use, the challenge is to reduce online harm without creating additional threats to privacy, freedom of expression, and meaningful participation. 

The Way Ahead Remains Uncertain – But Open for Youth to Influence

Writing in The Guardian, tech journalist Taylor Lorenz warns that social media bans for children could expand surveillance and censorship because their enforcement often depends on age-verification systems that collect biometric data, government identification, or other sensitive information. Such measures could weaken anonymity for journalists, activists, whistleblowers, and marginalized young people, introduce new cybersecurity risks, strengthen large technology companies that are able to absorb compliance costs, and give governments greater capacity to monitor online speech. Lorenz advocates for stronger privacy and consumer protection laws, enforcement against anti-competitive practices, and policies addressing the wider conditions affecting children’s wellbeing. 

Amnesty International has similarly supported the EU expert panel’s emphasis on making online spaces safer without imposing blanket bans on teenagers. Lisa Dittmer argued that companies should redesign addictive and manipulative features in social media platforms and AI chatbots, while regulators account for children’s evolving capacities and include young people in safety assessments. Amnesty also called for stronger enforcement of measures including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Digital Services Act, AI Act, and the proposed Digital Fairness Act.  

These debates suggest that young people’s participation will remain essential as governments decide how digital spaces should be regulated, who should bear responsibility for their harms, and which rights must be protected in the process.

Across Europe, India, the Philippines, and other regions of the globe, young people are challenging social media restrictions, facial-recognition surveillance, and exclusion from technology policymaking. From privacy advocacy to cybersecurity platforms, these examples show that youth participation also produces practical responses in data protection, digital safety, inclusion, and public engagement. Around the world, young people are, to different degrees, helping to shape how digital technologies are designed, regulated, and used. 

What might technology governance look like if young people were involved from the beginning? The future of digital governance may depend on whether institutions are willing to listen to those growing up within it and include in the decision process the interests of those most affected by these decisions. 

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