VoiceBox championing youth voices at the WeProtect Global Alliance 2024 Summit

Key points:

• VoiceBox, a youth content platform for creators aged 13-25, was commissioned as part of a youth campaign on digital safety and to increase youth representation at the 2024 Global Summit through original content from their international network of young content creators.
• The project resulted in 10 diverse pieces of content from young creators in 8 different countries, including articles, open letters, poems, art, and videos. The pieces provided direct insights from the participants about online safety challenges, personal experiences with the digital world, and ideas for creating a safer online environment for future generations.
• Extracts of their work were displayed on two large boards at the summit, allowing attendees to engage directly with youth perspectives on online safety. The full collection was also published on the VoiceBox website.
• The initiative exemplified meaningful youth participation by providing a platform for young people to express concerns, influence decision-makers, and receive fair compensation for their work.

The background

WeProtect Global Alliance was holding their Global Summit in Abu Dhabi in December 2024. This momentous event gathered global leaders, tech experts, civil society organisations, and policymakers to work towards a shared goal: creating a safer digital world, free from child sexual exploitation and abuse for future generations. Many of the topics around online safety that were to be covered at the summit directly affect young people, so team members at WeProtect and VoiceBox wanted to ensure that youth voices were showcased in a meaningful way.

The solution

VoiceBox is an international youth-led content platform that empowers creators aged 13-25 to share their passions through diverse, compelling content. They provide a safe, ad-free space for young voices to be heard and ensure that every published creator is directly compensated for their work.

To ensure youth representation in critical discussions, VoiceBox was commissioned to help increase youth voice at the summit with a collection of original content from their international network of young creators. To gather pieces for the collection, the VoiceBox team reached out to trusted creators who had previously been published on the platform and briefed them on the goal of the project. VoiceBox intentionally left the prompt open-ended to allow these young creators to express their authentic perspectives. This approach enabled them to gather valuable insights directly from the young people, reflecting their lived experiences and aspirations for a safer digital environment. As with all of VoiceBox’s work, the budget included the compensation for the creators for their time and efforts.

The impact

The project consisted of 10 pieces of a variety of forms of content – including articles, open letters, poems, art, and videos – created by young people from 8 different countries worldwide. The participants shared their concerns and experiences of their online environments as well as their ideas for solutions regarding the future of a safer online world.

Snippets from the various pieces of content were featured on two large display boards at the summit and virtually on the Summit’s digital platform which allowed attendees to take in perspectives from young people directly and reflect on what action is needed to create a safer online world for them. The full collective works are also currently featured on the VoiceBox website.

This project exemplified meaningful youth participation by providing young people a platform to express their online concerns and directly influence decision-makers. Participants were not only heard but also appropriately compensated for their work. Giving young people this power is crucial for genuine youth engagement. As a result, VoiceBox received positive feedback from the participants about the sense of empowerment they felt being able to contribute to such an important event.

Lessons learned

A significant concern raised by the creators was the increasing threat posed by AI and deepfakes. This issue resonated strongly throughout the summit as many experts also highlighted it as a critical challenge they were facing in their online safety work. The alignment between the concerns presented by VoiceBox’s young people and expert discussions underscored the need for collaborative solutions to combat the growing threats AI presents.