Testimony

Testimony Before the Illinois Senate Executive Subcommittee on AI and Social Media

Apr 2026 🇺🇸 Design It For Us

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.

5 of 5 test accounts served sexual content

Qureshi's testimony cites Design It For Us and Accountable Tech's own 'Scary Feeds' testing, in which all five test Instagram Teen Accounts were algorithmically recommended sexual content (see work #5 for the underlying report).

37% of surveyed 13-15-year-olds report weekly unsafe contact

Qureshi's testimony cites a coalition survey, which he calls the 'Missing the Mark' report, finding that 37% of surveyed 13-to-15-year-old users experienced unsafe content or unwanted messages on a weekly basis. TechKids Foundation was unable to independently locate and verify this underlying survey as a standalone source; the figure is reported here only as Qureshi's own citation within his verified testimony.

Litigation-disclosed internal company figure cited in testimony

Qureshi's testimony references material he says was disclosed in the California and New Mexico trials, including an alleged internal reference to a large daily volume of flagged sexually inappropriate messages on a Meta platform — a litigation-sourced claim TechKids has not independently verified.

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CITATION

Qureshi, Zamaan. Testimony before the Illinois Senate Executive Subcommittee on AI and Social Media. Design It For Us, April 10, 2026. https://designitforus.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Zamaan-Qureshi-Illinois-Oral-Testimony-04102026-1.pdf

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