Digital strategist Deja Foxx went viral for speaking up at a town meeting — and then learned the harsh cost of being in social media’s crosshairs. She welcomes us to the “girl internet,” a growing ecosystem of women-led platforms that prioritize privacy, community and respect. "We’re building a new, better way of being online, no matter your generation or your gender," she says.TED Talks Daily is nominated for the Signal Award for Best Conversation Starter Podcast. Vote here!Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-viennaTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Tiesitkö, että joka neljäs yli 40-vuotias mies kokee virtsan karkailua? Se on todella yleistä, mutta siitä ei silti juuri puhuta. Tenamen suojat on suunniteltu erityisesti miehille. Huomaamattomat, varmat ja luotettavat. Ota tilanne haltuun Tenamenin avulla.
Chapter 2: How did Deja Foxx's viral moment change her life?
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Deja Fox was 16 years old when she went viral online, and it turned her life upside down. In her talk, the activist and content creator shares the good and bad sides of online fame, and how it led her to recognize the importance of women-owned and led social media platforms.
To create a safer, more equitable and more inclusive online world, Deja says we must build the girl internet of the future. After her talk, check out my interview with Deja on this feed. We sat down while on site at the TED conference in Vancouver in 2025 for our Beyond the Talk interview series to learn more about her work.
Chapter 3: What is the 'girl internet' and why is it important?
I was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, by a single mom. And when I was 15 years old, I moved out because of her struggles with substance abuse. The next year, 2017, while living with my boyfriend and his family, my senator voted to strip the funding that I needed when I walked into a clinic with no money, no insurance and no parents to walk out with the birth control I needed to take control of my body.
My future. It was personal, and I told him so at a town hall meeting in Mesa. I asked, if birth control was helping me to be successful, reach for higher education, why would he deny me the American dream? Millions of people saw that video overnight. I had gone viral. My life went from private ...
to public, requests from CNN rolled in to go live. The Washington Post called me the new face of Planned Parenthood. 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. My world has opened up in unimaginable ways because of social media, both good and bad.
Ja noin vuosikymmeniä sitten se on tehty mahdollisuuksia, joita en ole edes voinut ajatella. Mutta olen nähnyt sydämellisiä algoritmeja ja tavoitteita, joita yritykset hyödyttävät heille. Esimerkiksi 2021-luvun päivä, kun ystävä kertoi minua ennemmin.
Kuusi päivää myöhemmin, kymmeniä kymmeniä arvoja, 60 000 tykkäystä, 4 000 retweeteja, 600 vastauksia myöhemmin, ja tämä cybermopi oli saanut DM-kysymyksiä ja kommentteja kaikissa sosiaalisten media-palveluissa. Nyt tarvitsen, että olet minun rauhassa.
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Chapter 4: How do young women use social media to build community?
20 vuotta vanha, yksityiskohtainen pandemian jälkeen, ja päästä huoneeseen ensimmäisenä päivänä, koska se on myös sinun huoneesi. Joudu ulos henkilökohtaisen henkilökohtaisen turvallisuuteen ja tietoisuuteen. Minulla on täysin kommentteja, joilla näyttää sinun näkökulmastasi ja arvostelua, että itse olet vain tullut rakentamaan.
Social media platforms didn't have a solution for the hate that they facilitated, but young people in my community did.
Maija ja minä tapasimme Instagramissa Gen Z Girl Gangin jälkeen. Se on digitaalinen yhteisö, jonka olin luotettava 2019 koulutuksessani. Olemme olleet yrittäneet uudistaa sisäisyyttä digitaalisissa aloissa. Vuonna 2021 emme olleet yhdessä todellisessa elämässä. Mutta kun minä tarvitsin hänet, hän oli siellä. Hän antoi minulle tekstin, elokuvan. Jos olen todellinen sinulle, anna minulle sinun palvelut.
She went in and deleted hateful comments and DMs before I could ever even see them, knowing that otherwise I would be forced to open, experience and clear each and every one alone. We deserve respect for our rights, privacy and safety by design, not as an afterthought.
ja selkeämmät suojelemukset haittasta ja harrastuksesta, jotka ovat tiettyjä meidän kokemuksistamme. Olemme olleet itsellemme ja ystävillemme. Olen nähnyt monia kokemuksia, kuten tämän minun aikani digitaalisen yhteiskunnallisuuden tekemisessä. Pandemian tuotantokysymyksissä naiset, joita en ole koskaan tutustunut, olivat työskennellä heidän stimulanssiinsa, jotta he voisivat auttaa pitkäaikaisen työnantajan tarpeeksi.
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Chapter 5: What innovative platforms are empowering women online?
They've shared thousands of internships, job opportunities, fellowships that have become career-making moments, first jobs for women they may never meet.
Big tech wasn't coming to save us, but girls like my friends just might. In my experience, it is teenage girls that 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.
We've developed survival strategies like Maya to protect ourselves and our friends, and we're not stopping there. We're building a new, better way of being online, no matter your generation or your gender. So let me be the first to welcome you to the girl internet.
Archive of Her Own was founded in 2008. If you ask almost any girl my age about it, she'll respond with a story of her introduction to the internet via its sometimes salacious fan works. But even more subversive is its structure.
non-commercial, non-profit archive run by an elected board, completely volunteer-powered, supporting a user base of over eight million, and its legacy brings us new, younger builders like Sarah Naqvi, whose experience running One Direction Stan accounts as a teenager has transformed into an AI-powered, VC-backed search engine for the fangirls called Lore.
Then there's sunroom, where the girls get paid to exist. Think OnlyFans, personalized, monetized content, but for everyone from fitness instructors to career coaches, and yes, obviously hot girls. But with content moderation done through a woman's lens and zero tolerance for harassment and hate speech. And if you still have questions about the digital world that we're building, there's DiEM. Founded by an all-women team,
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Chapter 6: What vision does Deja Foxx have for the future of the internet?
It's built to feel like you're asking questions in the girls' restroom at 1 a.m. Founded in 2023, it has a user base of over 100,000 and saw an increase by 700 percent in searches in the days following the US presidential inauguration in 2025. And that's no surprise, because a quarter of their searches are about reproductive health.
They're serious about our privacy, guaranteeing anonymous searching in a moment where major platforms are censoring women's health information. And respect for their consumers and creators is actually built into their business model. They reward conversations that train their algorithm with gems. They work a lot like credit card points. You can use them at your favorite brands or as donations to the causes you care about. I even saw a dad
of two little girls coming to DM to ask for advice. He came away with everything from book recommendations to affirmations from fellow users. So while these apps are built by and for the girls, their benefits go far beyond. They model an internet with respect, control, ownership.
They have more in common than just being built by women. They model a new, better architecture for a digital world that we are building. And this matters, because in a world where 39 percent of adults under 30 get their news on TikTok, this isn't some frivolous teenage pastime. This is the new public square.
We should not be forced to participate in hate-for-profit business models just to participate in that public discourse. This year alone, we've seen migrations from TikTok to Red Note, Twitter to Blue Sky. As entrenched as the current platforms may seem, they're not permanent. These social media platforms
jotka vaikuttavat kaupungin poliitikkoihin, koko ekonomiin, ovat yleensä vanhempia kuin minä. Ja minä olin luonut vuoteen 2000. Ei kuitenkaan, että moni vanhempi, joka niitä edustoi, oli myös vanhempi kuin minä. Ja Facebookin tapauksessa, ainakin Facebookin perusteella, hän oli enemmän kiinnostunut rajoittamaan vanhempia koulutuksia, kuin demokratisoimaan, kuka saattaa osallistua poliittiseen ja yleisön keskusteluun.
I stand in front of you today because of the internet. The college essay that I wrote on my phone earned me a place at my dream university on a full ride, the first of my family to go to college. A DM, a direct message on Instagram, led to a job on a history-making presidential campaign. And the following that I have built online has turned into the support I needed to launch my very first run for office.
I believe in the promise of the internet. And I'm asking you to join my generation to fight for it. Let's build our digital future together. Thank you. That was Deja Fox speaking at TED 2025.
If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This talk was fact-checked by the TED Research Team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tansika Sungmarnivong. This episode was mixed by Christopher Faisy-Bogan.
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