The group included young people from all around the world. Participants were asked to pin point their location on the world map:
The purpose of our DFC consultations with the Youth Ambassadors
The DFC’s has started to work with the Global Youth Ambassador’s Programme to engage with children and young people on the issues we are working with, in line with article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and General comment no. 12 on children’s right to be heard. Consultations with the GYA will inform the DFC’s research agenda as well as our projects and resources, informing also the recommendations we make. The global spread of the group, as young people representing vastly different geographies, affords us insight into similarities and differences that may exist between digital access and use.
In our latest consultation we asked the GYA ‘What is the most important thing for you in the digital world?’. As evidenced by the word cloud below the youth pinpoint both the importance in terms of the use they have of the digital environment in their everyday lives (i.e. information, entertainment, communication), the opportunities these afford (i.e. social connections, creativity, political activism, fun, inspiration etc.) as well as the ways in which they want to be protected in these environments (i.e. safety, privacy, legal protection). Their answers are strongly linked to the remit of General comment no. 25 on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment which recognises the breadth of ways in which the digital environment encompasses both opportunities and risks, as well as the need to ensure children’s rights are protected while also balancing their cultural rights and freedoms.
Your Rights Online
As a first exercise the Youth Ambassadors engaged with our child friendly toolkit ‘Your Rights Online’ to inform future developments of the site and its design. Sharing their previous experiences and reflections on the usefulness of the resource, the discussion revealed that they found the resource to be an important and comprehensive tool, making suggestions of ways to improve the site and make it more engaging.
Some had never before seen a similar resource:
“I have never seen a platform about online rights more about social media legislation / healthy digital habits.”
The youth ambassadors agreed that the resource was useful but that it was important the resource reached children, parents and educators.
“You must reinforce the information with schools and teachers and make them aware of it. So this information [can translate] into policies to be adopted by schools and universities to protect children online.”
Some suggested we do more publicity on social media:
“It is important to share [the website] on social media. There is where we [i.e. children and youth] are. Instagram, TikTok.”
They also seemed in agreement that the resource was useful and accessible to older children and youth:
"I think the language is good. Adults can understand it, child[ren] can understand it.”
The youth ambassadors provided concrete recommendations to improve the resource calling for us to also cater to younger children, to make the resource more interactive and engaging, as well as suggestions on developing the visual designs. They also suggested translating the resource into more languages, to allow a truly global reach.
“It would be great if the site could also include information on how rights interact with corporations responsibilities, kids don’t know anything about that and the information is really hard to find.”
Researching children's experiences with Generative AI
For our second activity we invited the GYA to take part the design phase of our research project on children’s experiences of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). Their input and contributions informed us on how they are using GenAI today, what tools they are using and how they are using these tools. The discussion allowed us to capture what these young people identified as risks, potential problems, benefits and possible harms.
Almost all had heard of and used generative AI tools. We further found that most use GenAI tools to search for information and to complete schoolwork. Examples and reasons they gave for using or not using GenAI tools included:
“Research, coding, academic work”
“Nothing, I have a moral opposition for AI”
“Talking to fictional characters”
“To brainstorm ideas”
“For creating a [fictional] dreamy picture for my music video/snippets but ultimately did not use them…they looked fake”
The youth ambassadors shared which GenAI tools they have used.
Participants were generally optimistic and actively using GenAI tools on a regular basis, however, they were also critical and expressed concerns:
“It is said that GenAI collects data from users to sell it to third-parties. Where, how, and why is my information being sold?”
“How can we determine the answer we get from AI is reliable, accurate, relevant and ethical?”
“How should we use AI safely and fairly, without getting compromised or misinformation?”
In the discussion participants elaborated on these concerns and how they manifest:
“[It] recommends that you eat poisonous mushrooms and there are likely honestly scary results that come out of this like. On some AI websites which are often the results they tell pregnant people should smoke cigarettes.”
“I use character AI to Like, have fun and destress. But then most of the teens and tweens that are chronically online tend to be like very alone or have some kind of already detrimental mental health. It's we should focus on like. Raising awareness and coming up with initiatives to kind of help those people to. Understand that this is not real. The AI is not somebody who can actually bring you comfort. It's not another human being, and it is not good to be with as such, you know.”
They also reflected on the potential ways that AI might aid in strengthening children’s knowledge on their rights in the digital environment:
“Imagine if we had a chat bot where you are able to go and just ask it about the community guidelines and immediately tells you exactly what you need to do and not to do and you know I feel like that would really be helpful for many teens out here.”
Text author: Kim R. Sylwander