On the occasion of International Youth Day, the Datasphere Initiative spoke to a range of youth activists, and young professionals to ask them why leveraging youth voices is important in efforts to unlock the value of data, and how can education on data governance equip youth globally with the skills they will need to promote a greener future?
Simona Ruzer and Jad Esber from Shelf, write about youth’s involvement in making sure data is used responsibly by platforms.
Read more about the campaign and other contributions here.
Imagine if the poster on your wall, your favorite book on your bookshelf, or even the clothes in your cupboard were stuck there. And you couldn’t carry them with you from one place to another. That’s kind of what it’s like online today. Our data is locked into closed platforms and exploited without our say! We’re building Shelf to help you weave together the threads of your digital consumption—your shows, books, music—and put it all on one Shelf. But more than that, we’ve built Shelf to give you total control over your data.
Let’s be real: Young people run the internet. We control what the next big app is going to be and consequently have the power to ensure that we support the platforms that treat our data appropriately. We hope to see young people get more informed about the data economy, but also demand more from the platforms they use. We deserve to know how our data is being used, and we deserve the right to be able to request our data back from platforms and to use them in any way we want. So, let’s say, if I wanted Apple Music to know what music I’m jamming to on Spotify, I should be able to make that happen! With Shelf, we’re excited to contribute to the broader movement putting people at the center of decisions about data use and technology.
At koodos labs, we’re a small, majority first-gen immigrant team of digital explorers that are building Shelf: a digital shelf that updates as you watch, read, and listen. On Shelf, you own your data – not Shelf, not anyone else. You’ll be able to decide what parts of your data Shelf and other apps can access. And you can change your mind at any time. So with Shelf, you become the boss of your information.
