The STORY
Every young person's feed is different, and almost nobody asks them how it works for them. When Meta backed us to find out, we made one rule: the young people would run it.
Our National Youth Collective, a group of 50+ paid lived-experience experts aged 12 to 21, helped us survey more than 1,000 young Australians about what they see, what they like and what they would change. Then the Collective turned the findings into short videos, so the answers reached their peers in their own voices.
The challenge: where we started
Algorithms decide a huge share of what young people see, hear and engage with online. They are largely invisible, and poorly understood by young people, teachers, parents and policy makers alike. And when adults debate what to do about social media, young people's own experience is mostly missing from the conversation.
We set out to fill that gap with evidence, not opinion. The challenge was to produce research that adults would take seriously, and a campaign young people would actually watch.
The solution: our approach
We treated young people as co-researchers and as the media.
- A survey built with the Collective. More than 1,000 young people across Australia answered questions about their experiences of social media algorithms, what works and what they want changed.
- A report co-authored by young people. Collective members worked on the findings, and the report put young people's recommendations at the front: rich experiences, agency, healthy content and connection.
- A launch for decision makers. We took the findings to a live online event for people from the tech industry, education, government and the youth sector, and presented them to leaders at the Meta APAC Youth AI Literacy and Safety Summit.
- Videos made by the people in them. Collective members joined weekly or fortnightly online conversations about the findings, then filmed their own short videos in portrait mode on their own kits and gave feedback on every edit.
- A second life in classrooms. The videos went on to PR PLUS with material for teachers, so the research keeps teaching after the campaign ends.
Throughout, the project stayed independent. Meta had no editorial oversight of the report or the videos.
The difference it made: our impact
The findings travelled further than a report usually does, and in more than one direction.
- Reach. The campaign's 22 Reels earned 660K plays in 11 weeks. The most-watched video, "The algorithm & exclusion", reached 63,300 views.
- A fuller picture. The report showed that young people are not passive. Most see real value in social media, many have run into harm, and a majority want more control over what they are shown.
- Heard by experts. A US digital anthropologist reviewed the research and shared her analysis on LinkedIn, closing with: "Behind every algorithm is a person."
- In the room with researchers and policy makers. Videos from this project were played as provocations before panels at the 2025 Digital Childhoods Summit, attended by researchers, policy makers and practitioners from across Australia.
- In classrooms. All 35 videos produced became a teaching resource on PR PLUS, with material to help teachers use them in class.
- A partnership that continued. Our work with Meta has carried on, including further resources for students and a youth advisory panel in 2026.
- Young people ran it. The Collective did the thinking, the filming and the talking, and were paid for it.
"It's changed my whole perspective of social media. I really understand what I'm seeing and how I see it."
- Jolie, 15, QLD