Young people already know a lot about the internet. They know how their peers actually use platforms, where safety tools fall short, and what adults often miss.
That lived experience is central to NoFiltr’s Youth Innovation Council. We pair it with the research, language, and policy context young people need to engage with the tech industry from an informed perspective.
Before beginning partner workshops or youth-led projects, all council members complete our three-week Digital Safety Bootcamp, developed in partnership with Thorn.
This year, 23 young people spent three weeks learning, questioning, and debating—and then had to prove what they learned.
Here’s what that looked like.
Week 1: Why We Start With Program Day
Before a single council member gets into research or policy, we spend a week on a more fundamental question:
What does it mean to be part of the Youth Innovation Council?
Program Day is where the council begins to become a council.
Members learn what will be expected of them, how their perspectives will contribute to the work, what it means to represent NoFiltr in conversations with partners, and how the different parts of the program fit together.
It also gives everyone a shared starting point.
Council members arrive with different interests, experiences, and levels of familiarity with digital safety. Nobody should have to figure out the rules of participation while simultaneously trying to contribute.
“Young people already bring expertise from living their lives online. Our job is to make sure they also have the research, context, and language to walk into a room with industry leaders and challenge ideas, ask informed questions, and advocate for what young people actually need.”
— Adele Taylor, CEO of NoFiltr
Program Day covers the structure of the council, expectations for participation, how members will work together, and how their work will eventually move from learning into youth-led resources, platform conversations, and policy input.
Then we start digging deeper.
Week 2: Learning to Ask Better Questions
Inside Issue Research Week with Tim O’Gorman (Thorn)
“I was impressed by how the participants in the YIC were clearly thinking deeply about how emerging technologies are affecting their lives. They asked some hard questions!”
— Tim O’Gorman, Senior Research Scientist at Thorn
Research Week starts with questions: What does the evidence tell us about young people’s digital experiences, where are the gaps, and does it reflect what youth actually see online?
With Tim O’Gorman from Thorn, council members explored research on AI, online relationships, algorithms, misinformation, and other digital safety issues, challenging what the research means in practice.
One discussion showed exactly why youth need to be in the room.
A spark worth sharing: What happens when young people work around a safety feature?
Council members were asked to imagine that their favorite platform introduced an age limit that excluded them.
What would teenagers they know actually do?
The answers came quickly: fake their birthday. Use a different identity. Ask an older person for help. Find another way around the restriction.
Then the conversation went one step further.
Several members pointed out that once a young person had circumvented an age restriction, they might become less likely to report a harmful experience because reporting could expose the fact that they weren’t supposed to be on the platform in the first place.
That distinction matters.
A safety intervention can look effective when you measure whether it exists. Young people can help us ask a harder question: What happens after you introduce it?
Later in the conversation, Tim raised a related concern: age restrictions could be enforced enough to make users claim they’re old enough without necessarily reducing the harm they’re intended to address.
That is the kind of thinking we want council members to carry forward.
Research gives them evidence. Their experience helps them interrogate what that evidence means in practice.
Week 3: Policy 101
Inside Policy Week with Lara Gemar (Thorn)
“I loved getting to engage with the Youth Council through the policy bootcamp session! Their perspectives on online safety (especially around hot-button issues like social media bans and AI companions) were so thought-provoking and provided an important window into the lived experience of youth navigating the online environment in 2026.”
— Lara Gemar, Senior Policy Manager at Thorn
By Week 3, council members have spent two weeks establishing their foundation and examining the research.
Now they have to ask: What do we do about it?
Policy 101, led by Lara Gemar from Thorn, introduces council members to the policy landscape surrounding online safety and gives them context for understanding how an issue can move from an identified harm to a proposed response.
The goal isn’t to turn 23 teenagers into policymakers overnight.
It’s to give them enough grounding to enter policy conversations knowing what questions to ask, where tensions exist, and why seemingly straightforward solutions can become complicated very quickly.
And the council demonstrated that almost immediately.
A spark worth sharing: Can you verify someone’s age without compromising their privacy?
When council members were asked to imagine one policy they would create for a platform or company, age assurance quickly became a debate.
One member proposed requiring minors to have a parental account attached to their account. Another argued that platforms should move away from collecting IDs for age verification because of the security risks associated with sensitive identity information.
There wasn’t one universal youth position.
Protecting young people online can require balancing safety, privacy, autonomy, access, and the practical realities of how a policy will actually be implemented.
Later, a conversation about financial sextortion prompted another realization. Several members were surprised by gaps in existing law and by how long the legislative process can take when technology and online harms can evolve much faster.
Understanding those constraints doesn’t make young people’s ideas less ambitious.
It makes their questions sharper.
Then They Have to Pass
Completing the three weeks isn’t the final step.
Council members take an assessment covering what they’ve learned throughout the Digital Safety Bootcamp.
21 of 23 council members passed.
That’s a 91% assessment pass rate, with those members earning their NoFiltr Digital Safety Certification.
The certification marks a shared baseline before council members move into their individual pods and begin applying what they’ve learned.
From here, the work becomes more specialized.
Council members will investigate issues within AI & Emerging Tech, Gaming & VR, Digital Wellbeing, and Online Harms. They’ll help develop youth-led resources. They’ll participate in conversations with technology companies. And they’ll bring their perspectives into discussions about the products, policies, and safety decisions that affect young people online.
The Bootcamp gives them a foundation for doing that work with context behind their opinions.
Because asking young people what they think is easy. Preparing them to ask better questions back is where it gets interesting.
Want to see what happens next?
Meet the Council →
Get to know the four YIC pods: AI & Emerging Tech, Gaming & VR, Digital Wellbeing, and Online Harms.
Interested in working with the YIC? See youth partnership in action →
Explore how NoFiltr has worked with partners to bring young people into conversations about products, policy, safety, and the future of technology.
Believe in youth leadership? Help put youth voice in the room →
Help us give more young people the training, access, and opportunities to influence how technology is built, governed, and made safer.