Feeling ‘Unsafe’ in Online Spaces: Young Peoples' Perspectives on Online Harms and Online Safety

  • Panel
  • Grande Halle
  • Thursday 22.05 — 14:15 - 15:30

Organising Institution

European Digital Rights (EDRi)

Europe

The EDRi network is a dynamic and resilient collective of 50+ NGOs, experts, advocates and academics working to defend and advance digital rights across the continent. For 20+ years, it has served as the backbone of the digital rights movement and has achieved landmark successes in digital rights in Europe. EDRi‘s mission is to challenge private and state actors who abuse their power to control or manipulate the public. We do so by advocating for robust and enforced laws, informing and mobilising people, promoting a healthy and accountable technology market, and building a movement of organisations and individuals committed to digital rights and freedoms in a connected world.
  • Academic 1
  • Business 1
  • Policy 4
From blanket bans to mandatory age verification systems, ‘silver bullet’ solutions have been on the rise to protect minors in online spaces. While these reactive measures are rapidly being adopted in the EU and many parts of the world, they often gloss over the harmful impacts these measures have on the rights of children and adults, including the right to privacy, participation, non-discrimination and access to information. These 'mitigating' measures, which are privacy-invasive and exclusionary, are often based on normative assumptions of the harms and risks young people encounter—harms and risks that are far more complex than what these stop-gap solutions can address. In this panel, we take a step back and look at research, evidence and lived experiences to explore what it really means to feel (un)safe in online spaces at different ages and from different positionalities.

Questions to be answered

  1. What are the actual, everyday harms that young people and people with marginalised identities encounter in online spaces?
  2. What are the proactive, holistic approaches we can take to address these harms?
  3. How can we better understand the harms and risks of online spaces from the various, diverse perspectives of young people?
  4. How can this help us work towards better online spaces where young people and adults alike feel safe, empowered and heard?

Moderator

Yassine Chagh

IGLYO - International

Yassine Chagh is a human rights activist currently serving as Chair of IGLYO and Anti-Racism Panel Coordinator, as well as Project Coordinator at Queerstion. Their work focuses on a wide range of issues, including Refugee and Migrant rights, Peacebuilding, Digital Rights, Anti-Racism, and Decolonisation—particularly challenging white saviourism, white supremacy, and tokenistic approaches both within the LGBTQIA+ community and beyond. Yassine’s expertise is rooted in lived experiences as an Indigenous, migrant, and Black/person of colour, as well as through active engagement with various local and global organisations and platforms such as UNFICYP, UNHCR, WOMEN WIN, European Youth Forum and more.

Speaker

Rita Costa Cots

Build Up - Spain

Rita is a digital peacebuilder currently working at Build Up, and a performance artist at heart. At Build Up, she has designed and implemented training for young people to develop digital peacebuilding skills, conducted participatory processes of social media analysis in different contexts in the West Africa region to understand polarization and intimidation online, and has advised institutions on how to integrate digital harm in their conflict analysis frameworks. Before Build Up, she collaborated with a CSO working on psychosocial and legal support to refugees and migrants and co-led an anti-racist initiative between universities in the Netherlands.

Speaker

Manon Baert

5Rights Foundation - Belgium

Manon Baert is the Senior EU Affairs Officer at 5Rights Foundation. 5Rights advocating for a better digital world for children, by design and by default at European level. She has worked on previously worked in EU affairs within a non-profit and a consultancy, focusing on human rights and sustainability, as well as at the EU Delegation to the Council of Europe, where she followed the negotiations for EU accession to the ECHR and on the Convention on AI. Manon graduated from the College of Europe and holds a LLM from Maastricht University.

Speaker

Stefi Richani

Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice - Belgium

Equinox is a queer, feminist, racial justice organisation working towards societies of care, not control. Our goal is to shift power, policies and resources away from punitive and discriminatory policies harming marginalised communities and toward societies of care. Stefi (Advocacy Lead) is a Brussels-based policy analyst working across racial justice, migration, digital and gender issues.

Speaker

Luísa Franco Machado

Equilabs - Brazil

Luísa Franco Machado is an award-winning digital policy expert and founder of EquiLabs, a Global Majority-centered digital rights laboratory advancing intersectional feminist approaches to AI and data governance. A UN-appointed Young Leader for the SDGs and a Rising Star on Apolitical’s Government AI 100, she has led work and research on ethical AI and data policy with institutions such as OECD.AI, UN, GIZ, LSE, Sciences Po, and governments around the world.