SafetyNet insights from young people around the world

Do children and young people feel their right to participate in matters affecting them extends to the digital world?

What emerging digital safety priorities and concerns exist for young people from different regions and countries? 

As many governments, industry, and technology stakeholders consider the future of the online world and digital safety, it is important that the voices of children and young people around the world are at the centre of these conversations.  

This global project – drawing from the insights of 109 young people ages 13-24 across 10 countries gained through global consultations co-ordinated by WeProtect Global Alliance – resulted in a co-created a suite of digital advocacy assets to amplify their priorities, thoughts, and perspectives on the future of digital safety, digital rights, and online-facilitated child sexual abuse and answer these vital questions. 

In collaboration with WeProtect Global Alliance, an inspired group of 12 young leaders around the globe embarked on a creative process to build these insights into a clear road map for what children and young people need for their future to feel safe. 

Children and young people feel they are walking a digital tightrope. As technology evolves, they need stakeholders to work together to keep strengthening a ‘SafetyNet’ to protect them from exploitation and abuse online. 

They want the right protections, the right tools, and the right to exist online without fear. They want a digital world designed with them and which protects their wellbeing. 

They deserve a safer digital world where no one falls through the gaps. 

This is their #SafetyNet Manifesto.

Explore the youth-led manifesto and their dreams for a safe digital world free from exploitation and abuse, and where their digital rights are championed and protected.

The insights can be found in the below #MyVoice#MyFuture - online safety insights from children and young people around the world report. It details priorities and perspectives from the global consultations in which children and young people reflected on their digital lives and their digital rights — what they love about being online and what challenges they encounter. 

Issues such as privacy invasion, the growing role of AI in their lives, online grooming, mental health pressures, and failures in content moderation emerged as key themes. They framed what they would want to say to decision makers and a true child-youth friendly digital world means for them.