Deja Foxx Tells Audience at TED: Let Youth Build the Future

In a powerful and deeply personal TED Talk, Gen Z activist Deja Foxx made a compelling case for why young people — particularly young women — should be at the forefront of designing our digital future. As the founder of Gen Z Girl Gang, Foxx shared her journey from a teenage gas station worker to a digital strategist and political force, illustrating how technology both empowered and endangered her along the way.

From Viral Moment to Digital Visionary

Foxx’s story begins in 2017 when, as a 16-year-old, she confronted her senator at a town hall meeting about cutting funding for birth control. “Birth control is helping me to be successful, reach for higher education. Why would you deny me that in this embarrassing country?” she asked. The moment went viral, catapulting her into the national spotlight overnight.

“Social media put me, a 16-year-old girl working at a gas station, on even footing in the public discourse with a United States Senator,” Foxx told the audience. “My world opened up in unimaginable ways because of social media, good and bad.”

This duality became a central theme of her talk. While social media gave her a platform that eventually led to a full-ride scholarship at her dream university and a job on a presidential campaign, it also exposed her to harassment and online abuse. In 2021, she became the target of a cyber mob after a stranger labeled her “the enemy” online.

When Big Tech Fails, Girls Step Up

What makes Foxx’s perspective particularly valuable is her firsthand experience with both the promise and perils of our digital landscape. When social media platforms failed to protect her from harassment, her community — specifically other young women — stepped in.

Foxx shared a touching story about Maya, a friend she met through her digital collective Gen Z Girl Gang, who offered to take over her social media accounts during the height of the harassment. “She sent me a text, a lifeline. ‘If I can be honest with you, send me your passwords.’ She went in and deleted hateful comments and DMs before I could even see them.”

This moment perfectly encapsulates what Foxx sees as a broader phenomenon: “Big tech wasn’t coming to save us, but girls like my friends just might.”

The Girl Internet Revolution

Foxx’s talk wasn’t just about criticism — it was about solutions. She painted a vision of what she calls “the girl Internet,” highlighting several platforms and digital spaces created by and for women that prioritize safety, privacy, and community.

She mentioned Archive of Our Own, a nonprofit, volunteer-powered archive supporting over 8 million users; Lore, an AI-powered fan fiction search engine created by a former One Direction fan account manager; Sunroom, a monetization platform with zero tolerance for harassment; and CF, a women-founded search platform with serious privacy guarantees, especially around reproductive health information.

“These apps are built by and for girls, but their benefits extend far beyond,” Foxx explained. “They model an Internet with respect, control, ownership. They model a new, better architecture for the digital world that we are building.”

Not Just a Teenage Pastime

Perhaps most importantly, Foxx challenged the notion that these concerns are merely the domain of teenagers or that social media is just a frivolous distraction. “In a world where 39% of adults under 30 get their news on TikTok, this isn’t some frivolous teenage pastime. This is the new public square,” she asserted. “And we should not be forced to participate in hate-for-profit business models just to participate in that public discourse.”

She reminded the audience that despite their outsized influence, most major social media platforms are remarkably young — younger than her, and she was born in 2000. Their youth underscores how rapidly they’ve transformed society and suggests they’re far from immutable institutions.

“As entrenched as the current platforms may seem, they’re not permanent,” Foxx noted, pointing to recent user migrations between platforms as evidence of their vulnerability.

Youth as Digital Strategists

Throughout her talk, Foxx positioned young people — especially teenage girls — not as passive consumers of technology but as its most innovative architects: “In my experience, teenage girls are the digital strategists of our time. In an internet not built for us, we have built narrative and political power one viral video at a time.”

This reframing is significant. Instead of viewing young users as victims needing protection or naive audiences being manipulated, Foxx presents them as sophisticated navigators who understand these systems intimately enough to hack, repurpose, and rebuild them.

“We deserve respect for our rights, privacy, and safety by design, not as an afterthought,” she told the audience, emphasizing that these values should be baked into the foundation of digital platforms, not added as patches after harm has occurred.

A Personal Testament to Digital Potential

Foxx concluded her talk by sharing how the internet has transformed her own life trajectory. The college essay she wrote on her phone earned her a full-ride scholarship as a first-generation college student. A direct message on Instagram led to a job on a presidential campaign. The online community she built supported her first run for political office.

“I’m a child of the Internet,” she declared, “and I’m asking you to join my generation to fight for it. Let’s build our digital future together.”

The Way Forward

Foxx’s message resonates at a time when concerns about social media’s impacts on mental health, democracy, and privacy dominate headlines. Rather than abandoning these spaces or accepting their flaws as inevitable, she advocates for reimagining them with different values at the center.

The digital collectives and platforms she highlighted demonstrate that alternative models exist and are thriving. They suggest that an internet built around community, consent, and care — rather than engagement at any cost — is not only possible but already emerging.

As tech regulation debates continue worldwide, Foxx’s perspective offers a crucial reminder: those who understand these systems most intimately should have a seat at the table when designing their future. In her vision, young people aren’t just inheriting the digital world — they’re actively building a better version of it.

“We’re building a new, better way of being online,” she told the audience, “no matter your generation or your gender.” With that invitation, she welcomed everyone to join a movement that’s already underway — one where the digital architects of tomorrow are the teenage strategists of today.