Hello,

As a young person who has grown up on your platform, I’m done with my time, attention, and data being exploited at the expense of my well-being and safety. I am no longer willing to be treated as a data point.

Our generation is tired of recounting the harms we’ve experienced while waiting for meaningful action. We are officially rejecting the status quo, and we have established a roadmap for the digital future we deserve: Design It For Us’ Declaration of Digital Rights. This Declaration lays out our generation’s fundamental demands: privacy, safety, the right not to be experimented on, real agency and user controls, the right to delete, transparency, accountability, and protection from manipulation. They’re basic rights that we consider to be crucial and essential in a digital environment.

Time and again, we’ve been told that it’s our fault, or it's our responsibility. We’ve been told that it's up to parents and guardians to take control. We’ve been told that your product’s safety and privacy settings are working, and we’ve been told that our experiences aren’t real. We were promised an online world that was meant to help us thrive, and we’ve been taught to adapt to one that exploits our information for profit.

But the reality is that we are paying the price of this deception and manipulation. Your products have turned an entire generation into its test subjects. We’re seen as an internal metric, and a dollar contribution to your bottom line. Our sisters are being targeted by hyper-specific advertisements. Our brothers are manipulated by deceptive features that force them to forfeit their data. Our cousins are being contacted by adult strangers. Our teammates are being exploited and hooked by your products even when they try to opt-out or delete them. Our neighbors seek mental health support using your AI tools, only to be told that they should kill themselves.

The status quo is no longer working. That’s why we need:

- Privacy by Default: Minimize data collection, end unnecessary tracking, and make privacy settings truly understandable.
- Safety by Design: Reduce amplification of harmful content/harassment/scams and invest in protections that actually work.
- No Silent Experimentation: Stop testing high-risk features on young users without meaningful informed consent.
- Real User Controls: Let me toggle off the most harmful engagement features (endless scroll, aggressive recommendations, addictive notifications).
- The Right to Delete: Make it easy to permanently delete my content and data.
- Transparency & Accountability: Publish meaningful transparency about how your systems affect users, and stop blocking legislation that would protect us.
- Protection from Manipulation: Remove dark patterns and engagement traps that weaponize our well-being.

We're not asking for a PR statement, nor are we hoping for performative band-aids that only serve as window dressing – or don’t even work. We're asking for concrete commitments and public timelines. This is an opportunity for your platform and leadership to respond to the harm and dissatisfaction of our generation in a way that maintains the benefits we all aim for – meaningful connection, expression, and community. We will no longer be taken for granted as guinea pigs of your products.

Design your products for us.