Whose childhood, whose safety? Marginalised youth and social media bans
Speakers
As governments, democratic and authoritarian alike, restrict children's access to social media in the name of protection, this lecture asks a harder question: protection for whom, and from what?
Bans are typically justified through an abstract, universal image of "the child," but their effects fall unevenly on children already unequally safeguarded. Drawing on cases of LGBTQ+ youth, racial minority youth, migrant and displaced children, and child activists, this talk argues that social media bans redistribute risks—cutting off self-built support networks, family contact, and community for some, severely impacting their rights—while leaving the underlying harms caused by social media business models intact. In debates leading up to the UK’s announcement of a social media ban, prominent parent-led voices were heard. Children, however, were not mentioned by the Government, nor did it address how bans might affect them differently. In this public lecture, we explore how marginalised and minority youth may be affected by social media bans and how a child rights-respecting approach can incorporate their perspectives.
Meet our speakers and chair
Lisa Dittmer is a researcher in Amnesty Tech's Children and Young People's Digital Rights Team covering topics such as systemic risks of social media platforms and other digital threats to children's and human rights. She previously worked for Wikimedia Deutschland and as an internet freedom advisor at Reporters Without Borders in Berlin.
Sakshi Ghai is Assistant Professor of Psychological and Behavioural Science at LSE and a Junior Research Fellow at Linacre College, Oxford. Her research examines how digital technologies affect the well-being and online safety of vulnerable youth, based on work across Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. She also champions sample diversity in behavioural science to better represent the Global South. She is a UK Women of the Future awardee in science.
Jessica Ringrose is Professor of the Sociology of Gender and Education at UCL, where she co-produces the Feminist Educational Engagement Lab. A feminist sociologist, she has studied gender inequity for over 30 years. Her current research examines how youth navigate AI harms, including emotional dependency and deepfakes. Author of Postdigital Intimacies, her work informed the UK Online Safety Act's cyberflashing offense, and she advises governments and police internationally.
Devina Sarwatay is a Presidential Fellow at City St George’s, University of London, researching young people's media practices and digital citizenship. Grounded in critical and cultural communication, her work focuses on three strands: digital communication and practices, competency and literacies, and comportment and ethics. Over a decade, she has developed this agenda through international research collaborations and leadership in scholarly associations and committees.
Sonia Livingstone is a Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. She has published 20 books and advised the UK government, European Commission, European Parliament, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Council of Europe and UNICEF on media audiences, children and young people’s risks and opportunities, media literacy and rights in the digital environment. She directs the Digital Futures for Children centre.
More about this event
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The Digital Futures for Children centre facilitates research for a rights-respecting digital world for children. This joint LSE and 5Rights research centre supports an evidence base for advocacy, facilitates dialogue between academics and policymakers, and amplifies children’s voices, following the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General comment No. 25.
The Department of Media and Communications is a world-leading centre for education and research in communication and media studies at the heart of LSE’s academic community in central London.
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