Ashley Lee presentation

"Politics Under the Radar: Youth and Digital Activism in a Surveillance Society"

Social media and digital platforms have become indispensable tools for a new generation of youth activists. However, these tools also subject youth to both new and old forms of surveillance and control. Based on cross-national field work with youth activists, I examine hybrid tactics that youth activists employ to resist surveillance and other forms of digitally mediated control as they participate in politics and social movements. I draw on in-depth interviews, digital ethnography, and surveys with youth activists in two democratic countries (US and Canada) and an authoritarian regime (Cambodia). In my presentation, I show that even in democracies like the US and Canada, for individuals along intersecting axes of marginalization (e.g. race, gender, citizenship status, etc.), public political acts do not capture the full range of young people’s political repertoires. I argue that to focus solely on public political behaviors on social media is to overlook key political tactics and experiences of marginalized groups, and the risks and harms that they face. My findings highlight the need to center the margins in rethinking the future of privacy, political participation, and human rights in the digital age.

Bio: Ashley Lee is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford University. Her research agenda examines the implications of technology design and use for democracy, human rights, and social equality, focusing on youth and marginalized communities. Her current book project focuses on technology, youth digital activism, and social movements in comparative perspective. In this work, she engages with issues of digital surveillance and other forms of repression across democratic and authoritarian countries. More broadly, her research interests include networked social movements; youth digital activism; surveillance; privacy; AI and inequality; public interest technology; youth and information policy; and design justice.

Previously, Lee worked on issues at the intersection of computer science, technology, society, and policy at Microsoft Research, Stanford Research Institute (SRI), Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, and the United Nations. She has served as director of Civic Tech with The Future Society and director of Harvard Innovation & Ventures in Education. She received a BS in computer science from Stanford University where she researched cryptography and cybersecurity. She recently completed her PhD in culture, communities, and education at Harvard University as a Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Fellow.