Zamaan Qureshi
Youth Leaders · Design It For Us
Co-chairs the youth coalition behind state design-code campaigns aimed at making platforms safer by default.
Zamaan Qureshi co-chairs Design It For Us, a coalition of young people pushing tech platforms and state legislatures toward products built with children's wellbeing in mind rather than bolted on afterward. His advocacy has centered on California's design-code campaign, part of a broader push to hold companies accountable for how their products are engineered for young users. Forbes named him to its 30 Under 30 list in recognition of that organizing work. Qureshi represents a specific strand of the youth-leader lane: policy-literate teenagers and young adults translating lived experience into legislative language lawmakers can act on.
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WORKS IN THE LIBRARY (11)
VIDEOS
Policy Voices: Zamaan Qureshi
In this Q&A for Children and Screens' recurring 'Policy Voices' newsletter feature, Zamaan Qureshi describes how watching a 2020 documentary about the Cambridge Analytica scandal drew him into tech policy work, and how his focus shifted toward youth online-safety advocacy as he says he watched peers develop anxiety, depression, and body-image concerns they associated with content repeatedly served to them on social media. He credits Frances Haugen's 2021 Facebook disclosures with catalyzing the current wave of kids' online-safety legislation, and discusses federal proposals including the Kids Online Safety Act, state Age-Appropriate Design Codes, and emerging AI-safety bills as the fronts he expects to dominate the coming year. He also predicts continued industry legal and lobbying resistance to enforcement. TechKids Foundation includes this interview as a first-person account of a youth advocate's stated policy priorities and reasoning, not as independent research.
Fox32 Chicago Interview on Illinois AI and Social Media Safety Bills
In a televised interview with Fox32 Chicago, described in his own social media post, Zamaan Qureshi discussed two pending Illinois bills Design It For Us was supporting: an AI-transparency and child-safety measure requiring third-party audits of large AI developers, and Governor JB Pritzker–backed legislation on children's social-media product design that he said could be strengthened further. He framed both bills around a 'safety and privacy by design' standard, arguing platforms and AI developers should bear responsibility for building products safe for young people by default rather than relying on after-the-fact parental controls. TechKids Foundation includes this appearance as a documented example of a youth advocate using broadcast media to build public support for pending state legislation; the exact air date is approximate, based on the timing of Qureshi's own account, since no separate broadcast archive link was located.
TESTIMONY
Testimony in Support of the Vermont Kids Code (S.289)
In testimony to Vermont's Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs, Design It For Us co-chair Zamaan Qureshi urged lawmakers to pass the Vermont Kids Code, a design-code bill requiring platforms to set their strictest privacy defaults for minors. Then a college senior, Qureshi argued that opaque recommendation algorithms and default settings are associated with harm to young users, and pre-emptively countered anticipated industry objections on free speech, parental rights, and age verification. He cited a Washington Post report on low adoption of Instagram's parental-supervision setting and a public poll on support for platform regulation to argue that voluntary industry safeguards were reaching only a small share of teen users. TechKids Foundation includes this testimony as a documented example of youth-led advocacy for state design-code legislation, offered in Qureshi's capacity as a coalition leader rather than as clinical or diagnostic evidence.
Testimony in Support of the Vermont Kids Code (S.69)
Returning to Vermont's legislature a year later, Zamaan Qureshi testified before the Senate Committee on Institutions in support of SB 69, a renewed version of the Vermont Kids Code. Speaking as co-chair of what he said was by then a 200-plus-member youth coalition, he described platform features — endless scroll, autoplay, opaque recommendation algorithms — that he associated with compulsive use among his generation, and said some peers had developed depression, anxiety, or eating disorders, or, in the gravest cases, died by suicide, following experiences he linked to social media use. He pointed to the U.S. Surgeon General's social media advisory and to internal Meta materials surfaced by whistleblower Frances Haugen as evidence that platforms were aware of these associations. TechKids Foundation includes this testimony as documented youth-advocate framing of design-code legislation.
Testimony Before the Illinois Senate Executive Subcommittee on AI and Social Media
Testifying before the Illinois Senate Executive Subcommittee on AI and Social Media as Design It For Us's director of campaigns and policy, Zamaan Qureshi cited his coalition's own testing, saying recommendation systems served sexual content to all five Instagram Teen Accounts it trial-tested, and that a separate coalition survey found more than a third of surveyed 13-to-15-year-olds experienced unwanted messages or unsafe content weekly. He referenced jury verdicts in California and New Mexico that found Meta and YouTube liable for design failures affecting young users — trials in which he says he testified, including as the state's final witness in the New Mexico case — and cited company language he said was disclosed in that litigation. He urged the subcommittee to advance Illinois design-code and AI-transparency legislation. TechKids Foundation includes this testimony as documented advocacy citing litigation-disclosed material; the litigation-sourced figures are Qureshi's own characterization and have not been independently verified by TechKids.
Testimony as Final Witness in New Mexico v. Meta
In a first-person account posted to LinkedIn, Zamaan Qureshi said he testified as the state's final witness in the trial of New Mexico v. Meta, a lawsuit alleging Meta failed to design its products safely for young users. He said his testimony presented findings from Design It For Us and Accountable Tech's own research, including the 'Scary Feeds' testing of Instagram Teen Accounts, and that he shared what he described as the lived experience of young people who grew up using Instagram. Qureshi's later Illinois legislative testimony (work #7) references a verdict in the case finding Meta liable for related design failures. TechKids Foundation includes this entry as a documented instance of a youth advocate serving as a formal courtroom witness; case-outcome details are as characterized by Qureshi in his own public statements and testimony and have not been independently confirmed by TechKids against the court record itself.
STUDIES
Why Meta's FTC Trial Matters For Keeping Young People Safe Online
In this bylined analysis for Tech Policy Press, Zamaan Qureshi argues that Meta's FTC monopoly trial is a rare opening to force accountability for design choices he associates with harm to teenage users. He writes that roughly six in ten U.S. teens use Instagram, cites disclosures from three Meta whistleblowers, and notes that more than 40 state attorneys general have sued Meta over features they allege are associated with compulsive use among minors. He references an internal 2019 Meta study he says found teens reporting they could not disengage from Instagram even when they wanted to, and argues that a forced separation of Instagram from Meta could restore competitive pressure toward safer product design. TechKids Foundation includes this piece as an example of a youth advocate translating an antitrust proceeding into child-safety terms; the argument and figures are Qureshi's own, not an independent TechKids finding.
Hinsdale Native's Youth Online Safety Coalition Works With Parents, Others to Push for Accountability From Social Media Giants
This Chicago Tribune feature profiles Zamaan Qureshi, a Hinsdale, Illinois native and Design It For Us co-chair, alongside a mother who spoke at a New York protest about her daughter's 2021 death, which she has said followed contact made through Snapchat. The piece documents Qureshi's account of organizing youth advocacy since 2023, his description of platform recommendation systems as a design factor he says should not have facilitated that contact, and a coalition member's account of body-image and diet-related content she associated with her own social media feeds. It also notes a bipartisan Illinois legislative package addressing minors' screen time and online safety. TechKids Foundation includes this profile as documented public advocacy connected to a family's loss; per TechKids editorial policy this entry carries the mandatory 988 safety note, and this abstract deliberately omits narrative detail about the death itself, describing only the documented public advocacy context.
Scary Feeds: The Reality of Teen Accounts
Accountable Tech and the youth coalition Design It For Us, which Zamaan Qureshi co-leads, published this joint report after five coalition members trial-tested new Instagram Teen Accounts over a two-week period in spring 2025. The report found that all five test accounts were algorithmically recommended content the researchers classified as sensitive or sexual despite Meta's default protections being enabled, that four of five accounts were recommended body-image or disordered-eating-adjacent content, and that four of five participants described their experience as distressing; only one of five accounts received recommended educational content. The report frames these findings as evidence that Instagram Teen Accounts' default settings did not fully deliver the protections Meta had publicly promised. TechKids Foundation includes this org report as youth-coalition-conducted testing relevant to platform design defaults, not as a peer-reviewed or clinical study; no individual author is credited on the report, which is jointly published by the two organizations.
Statement on Illinois Passing the Strongest AI Safety Law in the Country (SB 315)
After the Illinois General Assembly passed SB 315, described by supporters as the country's strongest state-level AI safety law, Design It For Us released a statement from director of campaigns and policy Zamaan Qureshi praising requirements that large AI developers publish safety plans, develop catastrophic-risk mitigation measures, report serious incidents to state officials, and submit to independent third-party audits rather than self-assessment. Qureshi framed the law as building on similar measures in California and New York and credited sustained advocacy — including his coalition's earlier Illinois legislative testimony, a member's published op-ed, and his own broadcast interview — with helping the bill pass. TechKids Foundation includes this entry as a legislative outcome Design It For Us directly credits to Qureshi's advocacy; the framing and figures reflect the organization's own statement rather than independent TechKids verification.
Statement on Illinois Passing the Children's Online Social Media Safety Act (HB 5511)
Design It For Us released a statement from Zamaan Qureshi after the Illinois General Assembly unanimously passed HB 5511, the Children's Online Social Media Safety Act, which requires social media platforms to prioritize young users' wellbeing over engagement and sets default protections for minors paired with privacy-preserving age assurance. Qureshi credited years of coalition testimony in the state with the bill's passage, framed it as building on similar laws in California, New York, and Vermont, and described industry efforts to seek platform-specific carve-outs and narrow the bill's scope during the legislative process. TechKids Foundation includes this entry as a policy outcome Design It For Us directly credits to its advocacy, including Qureshi's own prior testimony (work #7); the framing and figures reflect the organization's own statement rather than independent TechKids verification.