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Auditing Social Media Teen Safety Features: Research and Community Perspectives
event
Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube advertise childsafety features heavily: of 2,574 press releases collected since 2019, roughly one in eight describes one. A new audit from the Cybersafety Research Center asked whether those features do what the companies say. Of 86 advertised features tested between December 2025 and June 2026, 51 failed — they were broken (didn't work as claimed), buried (worked but unreachable for a teen), or missing (couldn't be triggered at all). Join us for a moderated discussion with lead author Lexie Matsumoto and Design It For Us co-founder Zamaan Qureshi on the findings, what they mean for the public, and where this line of research goes next.
The Cybersafety Research Center Lab Talks are sponsored by Northeastern University and New York University, hosted by IIID.
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speakers
Lexie Matsumoto
PhD Candidate, NYU Computer Science; Tech Congress Fellow, U.S. Senate
Lexie Matsumoto is a PhD Candidate in Computer Science at New York University. She additionally works as a Tech Congress fellow in the Senate. Her research measures societal effects on social media; most recently, she co-authored a report auditing social media child safety features titled “Broken, Buried, or Missing” that found a significant number of advertised tools do not work as expected.
Zamaan Qureshi
Design It For Us
Zamaan is an advocate, policy expert, and strategist focused on tech accountability, online safety, and privacy. He is the co-founder and Director of Campaigns and Policy at Design It For Us, where he leads advocacy on emerging technology policy, builds coalitions, and drives the youth online safety movement. His work has been featured in national media for elevating young voices in the fight for a safer digital world. He is a graduate of American University, where he earned a B.A. in international studies and political science. Zamaan is on the 2025 Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
Laura Edelson
Northeastern University
As co-director of the Cybersafety Research Center at NYU, Dr. Edelson has pioneered user data donation approaches to increase transparency in digital platforms. Her work on the Ad Observatory and Ad Observer projects has established new standards for monitoring online political advertising and platform accountability.
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September 2, 2026 | 8:30 am - 5:30 pm EST
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September 2, 2026 | 8:30 am - 5:30 pm EST
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In-Person
APSA Pre-Conference Event:
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September 2, 2026 | 8:30 am - 5:30 pm EST
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September 2, 2026 | 8:30 am - 5:30 pm EST
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September 2, 2026 | 8:30 am - 5:30 pm EST
EST
In-Person