Welcome to Quire
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What is Quire?
Quire is a monthly newsletter that aims to be a handy resource on debates in youth tech policy. We help you enquire about how we can build safer, private, and healthier online products and policies for young people. By curating and analysing the work being done by young people, educators, companies, governments, and civil society, you can have a better handle on the top questions of the moment when it comes to young people’s experiences online.
Who’s enquiring?
Hi, I’m Vaishnavi. I’m the founder of Vyanams Strategies (VYS), a policy consultancy at the intersection of online safety, youth well-being, and policy development. I am a longtime industry expert in online child safety and privacy as well as age-appropriate design, policy development, and product guidance. Prior to founding VYS, I held a range of policy leadership roles at Meta, Twitter, Google, and Disney. You can learn more about what VYS does at www.vyanams.com, and you can also read more about me there.
If you’re interested in collaborating on a particular project, curious about what we do, or generally want to chat about all things tech policy, you can contact me through the form on our website. We are good about routing emails, so I promise to get back to you in a reasonable amount of time.
A few things to note about this newsletter
I will write in British English, the form that I am most used to (and frankly prefer). This means “u”s where some weren’t expecting them and “s”es where they were expecting “z”s. If this is you and it starts to feel unbearably irritating, drop me a note and tell me how you feel.
“Youth” / “Young people” generally refers to anyone under the age of 18, and can be further disaggregated into “children” and “teens”. I will be specific wherever there is a difference in how we should address the two groups:
Children: Youth under the age of 13
Teens: Youth aged between 13 - 17
This is my starting point: I believe that thoughtful and data-driven design choices at companies can lead to substantially better outcomes for young people’s experiences online. I have seen this firsthand through the policy and product decisions my teams and I directly informed at the companies where we worked. Where those choices are not possible because of other considerations, I believe we should have an informed conversation about those tradeoffs and try to find alternatives.
This is meant to spur innovation, not impede it. I dream of a tech future that sees the opportunity to design for all parts of the community as a gift. One that sees the complexity of building responsible tech as an exciting opportunity for innovation and growth, rather than a burdensome obstacle to moving fast and breaking things (see this interview for more of these thoughts).
