Youth Perspectives on Digital Empowerment and Safety

This mess of an online world that we've created. So Lindsay, thank you for being here. Of course. Thank you so much for having me, Angeline. I'm really excited to speak here and hopefully empower the younger generations. Do you wanna start by telling us a little bit about yourself? Sure, yeah. So I am a senior at Duke University studying public policy and digital intelligence.

And I've also worked as a consultant for large social media platforms. Basically managing their risks and helping them figure out what stakeholders to talk to to mitigate their risks in the best possible way. And now I am trying to get my foot in the door more in the trust and safety industry. And people like Angeline have been so helpful making my voice heard, and I'm just trying to speak on behalf.

I do want to start with one thing that we were discussing before. So this book, and I don't wanna get political, but. We have to talk about politics, uh, in, in this particular case. So this book came out from a Facebook whistleblower, Sarah Wind Williams, and I saw an interview by her and she was talking about how in the last election that the Facebook employees were sitting down to next to the Trump campaign team and teaching them every trick they knew about how to harness the power of Facebook to target people.

Younger people voting is the issue there from that comment is kind of searing it in the wrong direction. I think that it's more so about how these corporations have no guidelines. They really just have voluntary ethical commitments and they don't have to, at least in the US, they don't have to go to the government and comply with many legislation or regulation, at least federally.

So then they're able to. Work with the government in maybe non bipartisan ways, and then that ends up affecting everyone on social media platforms, not just the younger generation. And I think that's a huge misconception that this collaboration with the government, with a large social media company, with the government is.

Like sharing our children's entire lives and stuff like that. And this is one thing I've really been trying to wrap my mind around, because this is a huge gap between a lot of people in the different generations, is the older generation kind of looks down to, you guys are such a mess. You need to do this and this and this to be safe and be better.

Experiencing it now and if these guidelines that adults are putting in place are actually working for the targeted group of people. So it is interesting. Kind of like blaming the people that you're trying to control almost, or I don't know. That's a good way of saying it. I think it does a lot have to do with control.

And social media is just the place where we found to communicate with each other. Right, and even more for you I guess. Yeah. I feel like even on LinkedIn when I'm scrolling, it's not really people in college or high school coasting. It's more so like people higher up in their careers, maybe like 35 and up, I would say posting, trying to like increase their network.

So I'd say, I guess on LinkedIn, maybe on Instagram or TikTok, it's different because my feed is catered to me, so it's more so younger people. But LinkedIn, I feel like it's more so about your interests and not really your age. I don't know if you agree with that on LinkedIn, if that's No, I do. I do. Yeah.

And I've also heard this from, in terms of privacy, there's always like, don't share your data, don't do this, don't do this. And I've heard a lot of, I also read an article the other day written by a 17-year-old saying, just we know what to do. Right. So just kind of leave us alone. And I think that's a bit of an extreme, but I think a lot of young people probably think that way.

Like clearly, like we're being listened to, like our, our privacy is not secure. So like something does need to happen and I can't change that just from like the efforts that I put in. We are each making our own little dent, but. At the end of the day, it is a big group effort and to make like a tangible impact.

You can't just like leave it alone. And I would say that younger people, like this 17-year-old girl and other students who are interested in this field or just have grown up with technology, I'd say are extremely tech savvy, probably more than older generations, but. That doesn't mean that like even if you know how to use Instagram or TikTok or you can text really fast, that doesn't mean that you're actually protecting your data.

I. That's actually two things I want to point. I'm, I'm laughing about the shampoo pen. It's such a good example. People my age and I would say I can speak for the ones around me are up to 10 years younger, are still like baffled how that happened. I have been working actively with the people around me just trying to set their settings to make that stop happening.

But you know, there's so many different settings. I know so many. Yeah. All the locations, it's hard to keep control. Yeah. And you tell them, you're like, oh, I, no idea. So I, I do believe you that young people is, this is something that these simple conversations we need to have, you know, like, like why is this appearing?

I'm trying to think. It's definitely hard because it's more so like putting yourself in other people's shoes. Like I, I feel like it kind of reminds me of what I'm talking to a boy or a man about, like being a woman and like, you can just go on a run at 9:00 PM but I can't. And then it's kind of like explaining.

Help me, and then my phone and credit card is tracking that information and then the government is able to access that information and then that would end up putting me in a legal situation for trying to get medical assistance. So it's like. Kind of putting that into perspective for people maybe in blue states or in another country, like it makes absolute sense, and I really like that example because the world hears about the American news, right?

Even the people who are listening who aren't in America will know. This is a really good example. People feel so passionate about it. They're not in the middle usually. That's a really good example that if you connect it to something that people care about most Exactly. Right. And then they'll understand, yeah.

So, yeah, I really like that example. It's kind of like the Facebook Analytica case study too, which is like. All of our photos and likeness is like on the web and like who knows what technology there will be in 10 years just because we've taken a photo and someone else posted your photo on LinkedIn, then now that's on the web and who knows like what people can do with your face since it's publicly available.

It's like you never really know. So it's better to be safe than sorry? I would say so, yeah. I guess just tips for people is, I guess for the American perspective, is. That could be a way to make them feel something or kind of like resonate with them. And then I guess for other countries it's thinking of something else that's more relatable.

I can only imagine how difficult that must be. Like starting out life and knowing there's an invisible AI that is kind of making decisions for you. Yeah, it is kind of scary, at least for me. There wasn't AI when I was writing my college applications, which I'm like kind of mad about that. Like now people do have that because it was just so much writing and now you could just give them a prompt about your life and your interest and it could probably write something like half decent that you could work off of.

And now it's kind of like that's our new reality with ai. That I've kind of just come to terms with, but I'm still kind of like, what is going on? Is anyone actually writing their own thoughts? Is this. Ethical. Is this okay? Is this us just being efficient? Like there's still so much unknown about how I feel about it.

And that was with the thoughts, and I am really worried about that as well, because obviously each tool has its own agenda in terms of what's right and what's wrong, and it's very difficult. To recognize, it's very difficult to recognize that maybe a course in how to recognize the bias of this particular AI output could be a huge, huge added value, right.

For E everybody. Yeah. Yeah, for everybody. So the education is like. How your thoughts are gonna be impacted by ai. But then it's also, you said about the college application also this, you would've had ai, but also the, the university would've had AI and employers have ai. So it's a whole different way of thinking.

So it's really, you have to cater around to the new reality, which is like a world with ai. Do you have the feeling that you are, you're all just like helping each other with this, or they're like. Older people that are helping you as well? I'd say it is, at least in my experience, doing the digital intelligence certificate at Duke.

And so I don't think that it's really just us younger people against the whole world trying to figure out how to best use ai. I guess another example could be Metaphysic ai, where I interned for a few months. They use generative AI to. They're saying is like to enhance creativity and to enhance entertainment.

So they basically do the impossible by, for example, aging Tom Hanks from like 60 years old to 20 years old in real time. So they can just take a photo of him when he's 60, and then in real time he'll be 20. So it's kind of like you can use AI for not just efficiency purposes, but also for. For fun and creativity and different ways to look at the world and.

A lot of people can imagine the chat bots because they can. Just imagine talking to anyone. It's a really, really good point that actually there's a lot more that is already like ingrained everywhere that we're not talking about at all. Is it influencing us already a lot more than we think? I really think as you were talking that it would be so important, but we know this.

But the question is how that, that we need to, to talk together more like the ai older generation skeptics. And I noticed that in our panel as well. This like optimism towards ai. We have to find a middle ground. 'cause I think each of us is right in their own way. Just from like a youth perspective, what's the best way to.

Like I've been on little coffee chats with people where I'm talking to someone who is like a mentor to me, but it's kind of just them talking at me. Not really a fluid conversation where we're each learning something as if like, I don't have anything to give because I'm younger and they're the older, more superior person.

Like it's a completely different trajectory, but it also offers a different opinion. So I think it's just people need to be more open and do more than just. Not the bare minimum, but um, just like having conversations and trying to, I guess, change. I don't know, like No, no, it makes sense. This reminds me when I worked in a financial institution and I, I understood that to get ahead, I needed to realize I can learn from everybody.

It's a different kind of informed than it ever has been, maybe in terms of maybe some time in the past, but in the recent history. So that's a really good point. We're almost out of time, but if you can say like your dream, like of the next 12 months, what would it be in terms of AI or tech? And that's a really big question.

I was just reading about this Google Summit where it's, I think it's called Growing up in the Digital Age. Basically the whole seminar was adults talking, and then they had like a few 17 year olds come for a little bit, but it's ironic almost that that's what the panel is called, and then it doesn't actually involve the people who are growing up in the digital age.

So I think that in the next 12 months, I hope that there's more initiatives like the SHIELD Conference. Where people can collaborate across generations and experiences and backgrounds to create a safer online world for everybody despite. How old they are or despite where they come from. I love it. I'll just add one thing.

It was really great talking to you. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Angeline. This was amazing. And that brings us to the end of this episode of Digital Dominoes. We hope you've enjoyed learning about another piece of the puzzle that makes up the vast and complex digital world. Remember, you can find all our episodes and more@digislashdominoes.com.

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