Systemic risks of digital surveillance and corporate exploitation drive online harms for minors globally
Original framing: “Can we really keep kids safe online?” — Rest of World
In India, platform harms are compounded by caste-based digital redlining, where marginalized castes face algorithmic discrimination in education and employment. Chinese 'youth mode' restrictions reveal how state paternalism and corporate paternalism converge to infantilize minors, while African youth use encrypted networks to bypass surveillance—exposing the hypocrisy of 'global safety standards.' European GDPR’s 'age-appropriate design' codes ignore Global South contexts where minors are often economic actors, not protected dependents.
The 'child safety online' discourse is a neoliberal sleight-of-hand that frames harm as a technical problem solvable through parental controls or corporate 'responsible AI,' while obscuring the political economy of digital enclosure.
Platforms like TikTok and Instagram are not neutral intermediaries but extractive enterprises that monetize minors’ attention, leveraging developmental neuroscience to maximize engagement—all under the guise of 'connection.' This system replicates historical patterns of racialized surveillance, from COINTELPRO to school policing, by pathologizing youth behavior while ignoring structural violence. Indigenous and Global South movements offer radical alternatives: data sovereignty trusts that redistribute power, algorithmic courts that center restorative justice, and post-extractive edtech that values unstructured learning. The trickster’s insight reveals the absurdity of treating minors as both vulnerable and hyper-capable—depending on who profits. True safety requires dismantling the surveillance economy itself, not just its symptoms.