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TED Talks Daily

Going viral taught me the internet is broken - but fixable | Deja Foxx

with Deja Fox

Published October 6, 2025
View Show Notes

About This Episode

Host Elise Hu introduces a TED 2025 talk by activist and content creator Deja Fox, who recounts how a viral confrontation with her senator over access to birth control thrust her into the public eye as a teenager. She describes both the opportunities and harms that came with online fame, including coordinated harassment and the absence of effective platform protections. Fox then highlights girl- and women-led digital collectives and platforms that prioritize safety, privacy, respect, and user ownership, calling for a "girl internet" and inviting listeners to help build a more equitable digital future.

Topics Covered

Social media and online platforms Online safety Content creation Women's health advocacy Personal narrative Feminism Identity Nonprofit organizations

Disclaimer: We provide independent summaries of podcasts and are not affiliated with or endorsed in any way by any podcast or creator. All podcast names and content are the property of their respective owners. The views and opinions expressed within the podcasts belong solely to the original hosts and guests and do not reflect the views or positions of Summapod.

Quick Takeaways

  • A viral town hall confrontation over access to birth control transformed Deja Fox from a 16-year-old gas station worker into a nationally visible activist overnight.
  • Fox experienced severe online harassment and threats, revealing how current social platforms profit from engagement while failing to protect targeted users.
  • She and peers built Gen Z Girl Gang, a digital collective that practices mutual aid, emotional support, and digital safety strategies like delegated moderation.
  • Fox argues that teenage girls are leading-edge digital strategists, building narrative and political power in an internet not originally designed for them.
  • She showcases women-led platforms such as Archive of Her Own, Lore, Sunroom, and DM as blueprints for safer, more respectful, privacy-focused online spaces.
  • Fox emphasizes that social media platforms are young and not permanent, and urges people to help build and migrate to better-designed alternatives.
  • Her own life-college admission, campaign work, and a run for office-was made possible by the internet, reinforcing her belief in its promise despite its flaws.

Podcast Notes

Podcast introduction and framing

Show and host introduction

Identification of the podcast and host[2:21]
• The listener is told they are listening to TED Talks Daily, which brings new ideas and conversations to spark curiosity every day.
• The host introduces herself by name: Elise Hu.

Introduction of Deja Fox and talk theme

Deja's early viral moment[2:23]
• Elise states that Deja Fox was 16 years old when she went viral online, and that this experience turned her life upside down.
Topic and message of the talk[2:29]
• Elise explains that in her talk, Fox shares both the good and bad sides of online fame.
• The host says Fox's experience led her to recognize the importance of women-owned and women-led social media platforms.
• Elise summarizes that to create a safer, more equitable, and more inclusive online world, Deja argues we must build the "girl internet" of the future.

Pointer to follow-up interview

Beyond the Talk interview mention[2:56]
• Listeners are told that after the talk, they can check out Elise's interview with Deja on the same feed.
• Elise notes they sat down on-site at the TED conference in Vancouver in 2025 for the Beyond the Talk interview series to learn more about Deja's work.

Deja Fox's personal background and path to going viral

Childhood and family context

Growing up in Tucson with a single mother[3:00]
• Deja says she was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, by a single mom.
Leaving home at 15[3:13]
• At 15 years old, Deja moved out of her home.
• She explains that her decision to leave was due to her mother's struggles with substance abuse.

Dependence on reproductive healthcare

Living situation and clinic experience[3:18]
• The following year, 2017, she was living with her boyfriend and his family.
• She describes walking into a clinic with no money, no insurance, and no parents.
• She was able to walk out of the clinic with the birth control she needed to take control of her body and her future.
Senator's vote threatens her access[3:23]
• Deja recounts that her senator voted to strip the funding that had made that clinic visit and her access to birth control possible.

Confrontation at the town hall and viral moment

Making it personal at the town hall[3:38]
• She describes the issue as personal and says she told her senator so at a town hall meeting in Mesa.
• At the town hall, she asked why, if birth control was helping her be successful and reach for higher education, he would deny her the American dream.
The video goes viral and media response[3:53]
• Deja states that millions of people saw the video of this exchange overnight.
• She says she had "gone viral" and that her life went from private to public.
• Requests from CNN rolled in to have her go live on air.
• The Washington Post called her "the new face of Planned Parenthood."
• She notes that social media put her, a 16-year-old girl working at a gas station, on even footing in the public discourse with a United States senator.

Ambivalent impact of social media on her life

Opportunities opened by social media[4:23]
• Deja says her world has opened up in unimaginable ways because of social media.
• She emphasizes that over nearly a decade, social media has made possible things she could not have imagined.
Recognition of social media's dark side[4:32]
• Despite the benefits, she says she has seen the dark side of insidious algorithms and the ways companies profit from them.

Experience of online harassment and lack of platform protection

Being labeled an enemy and targeted

Triggering event in 2021[4:42]
• She recalls a day in 2021 when a stranger labeled her "the enemy" online.
Scale of the cyber mob response[4:59]
• Within four days, the post about her had generated hundreds of thousands of impressions.
• She specifies that it accumulated 60,000 likes, 4,000 retweets, and 600 replies.
• This activity resulted in a cyber mob that filled her direct messages and comments across all social media platforms.

Emotional reality of harassment for a young person

Inviting the audience into her experience[5:11]
• Deja asks the audience to imagine themselves in her shoes at 20 years old, isolated by an ongoing pandemic.
• She notes that like many people, she reached for her phone first thing in the morning because it also served as her alarm.
Nature of the threats and comments[5:27]
• She describes waking up to threats to her personal safety and personal information.
• Her notification center was full of comments about her appearance.
• The comments also contained speculation about an identity that she herself was only just beginning to build.

Platforms' inaction versus community response

Lack of platform solutions[5:34]
• Deja argues that social media platforms had no solution for the hate they had facilitated.
Support from young people and peers[5:39]
• She notes that while platforms lacked solutions, young people in her community did have responses.

Gen Z Girl Gang and grassroots digital sisterhood

Founding and purpose of Gen Z Girl Gang

Meeting Maya online[5:43]
• Deja explains that she met Maya on Instagram through Gen Z Girl Gang.
• She describes Gen Z Girl Gang as a digital collective she founded out of her dorm in 2019.
• Since its founding, she and others have been committed to redefining the practice of sisterhood in digital spaces.

Maya's intervention during harassment

Support despite never having met in person[6:58]
• By 2021, Deja and Maya had still never met in real life.
• Despite this, when Deja needed help, Maya was there for her.
Sharing passwords as a lifeline[6:11]
• Maya sent Deja a text message that Deja describes as a lifeline.
• The text read: "If I can be honest with you, send me your passwords."
• Maya used Deja's passwords to go into her accounts and delete hateful comments and DMs before Deja could see them.
• Deja notes that without this help, she would have been forced to open, experience, and clear each and every hateful message alone.

Call for rights and protections by design

Demanding respect and safety as defaults[6:36]
• Deja says that users deserve respect for their rights, privacy, and safety by design, not as an afterthought.
• She calls for clear protections against hate and harassment that are informed by the experiences of people standing up for themselves and their friends.

Examples of mutual aid and opportunity sharing

Financial support in pandemic chats[6:58]
• Within Gen Z Girl Gang's pandemic support chats, girls who had never met volunteered their stimulus checks to help a long-distance best friend in need.
Sharing of career opportunities[7:09]
• Members have shared thousands of internships, job opportunities, and fellowships.
• These shared opportunities have become career-making moments and first jobs for women who may never meet one another.
Belief in girls as problem-solvers[7:24]
• Deja concludes that big tech was not coming to save them, but girls like her friend might.

Teenage girls as digital strategists and the "girl internet" concept

Girls' strategic role in online spaces

Teenage girls as leading digital strategists[7:24]
• Deja asserts that, in her experience, teenage girls are the digital strategists of our time.
Building narrative and political power[7:36]
• She says that in an internet not built for them, girls have built narrative and political power one viral video at a time.
Developing survival strategies[7:39]
• She notes that girls like Maya have developed survival strategies to protect themselves and their friends online.
• She emphasizes that they are not stopping at survival but are building a new, better way of being online for people of all generations and genders.

Invitation to the "girl internet"

Defining the emerging space[7:52]
• Deja formally "welcomes" the audience to what she calls the girl internet.

Examples of girl-led and women-led digital platforms

Archive of Her Own as an early model

Cultural role and reputation[8:05]
• She cites Archive of Her Own, founded in 2008, as an example.
• She says that if you ask almost any girl her age about Archive of Her Own, they will respond with a story of their introduction to the internet via its sometimes salacious fan works.
Subversive structure and governance[8:17]
• Deja argues that more subversive than the content is the archive's structure.
• She describes it as a non-commercial, non-profit archive run by an elected board.
• The platform is completely volunteer-powered.
• It supports a user base of over 8 million.

Lore: fangirl-focused search engine

From Stan accounts to startup[8:34]
• Deja introduces Sarah Nakvi as a newer, younger builder inspired by this legacy.
• She explains that Nakvi's experience running One Direction Stan accounts as a teenager has transformed into Lore.
Lore's positioning and technology[8:42]
• Lore is described as an AI-powered, VC-backed search engine for the fangirls.

Sunroom: monetized content with safety focus

Business concept and user types[8:26]
• Deja describes Sunroom as a platform where "the girls get paid to exist."
• She asks the audience to think of OnlyFans, with personalized, monetized content.
• On Sunroom, users include everyone from fitness instructors to career coaches and, in her words, "yes, obviously, hot girls."
Moderation and zero tolerance policies[9:04]
• She emphasizes that content moderation on Sunroom is done through a woman's lens.
• The platform has zero tolerance for harassment and hate speech.

DM: anonymous, women-built Q&A platform

Feel and founding team[9:15]
• Deja turns to DM as another example for those who still have questions about the digital world girls are building.
• She says DM was founded by an all-women team.
• She describes it as built to feel like you're asking questions in the girls' restroom at 1 a.m.
User base and post-inauguration growth[9:22]
• DM was founded in 2023.
• It has a user base of over 100,000.
• DM saw an increase by 700% in searches in the days following the U.S. presidential inauguration in 2025.
• Deja says this surge is no surprise because a quarter of DM's searches are about reproductive health.
Privacy commitment and health information[9:47]
• DM guarantees anonymous searching.
• This privacy guarantee comes at a moment when Deja says major platforms are censoring women's health information.
Gems: aligning business model with respect[9:53]
• Deja states that respect for DM's consumers and creators is actually built into its business model.
• The platform rewards conversations that train its algorithm with "gems."
• She explains that gems work a lot like credit card points.
• Users can redeem gems at their favorite brands or use them as donations to causes they care about.
Example of a father using DM[10:06]
• Deja mentions seeing a dad of two little girls coming to DM to ask for advice.
• She says he came away with everything from book recommendations to affirmations from fellow users.

Shared benefits and architectural principles

Benefits extend beyond girls[10:23]
• Deja notes that although these apps are built by and for the girls, their benefits go far beyond that group.
• They model an internet characterized by respect, control, and ownership.
Common architectural features[10:34]
• She observes that these platforms have more in common than simply being built by women.
• Together, they model a new, better architecture for a digital world that her generation is building.

Social media as the new public square and pressures of current business models

Social platforms as news sources

TikTok's role in news consumption[10:52]
• Deja cites a statistic that in the current world, 39% of adults under 30 get their news on TikTok.
Reframing online activity as civic participation[10:52]
• She argues that this means social media use is not some frivolous teenage pastime.
• Instead, she calls it the new public square.

Critique of hate-for-profit models and platform impermanence

Rejection of hate-driven monetization[11:05]
• Deja says people should not be forced to participate in hate-for-profit business models just to participate in public discourse.
Recent platform migrations[11:22]
• She notes that in the current year, users have migrated from TikTok to Red Note and from Twitter to Blue Sky.
• She uses these migrations to argue that as entrenched as current platforms may seem, they are not permanent.
Youth of platforms and their founders[11:25]
• Deja points out that these social media platforms, which influence national policies and entire economies, are by and large younger than she is.
• She mentions that she was born in 2000.
• She adds that many of the men who founded these platforms were younger than she is now when they created them.
Original intent of Facebook[11:46]
• Using Facebook as an example, she says that at its origin it was more interested in rating the founders' female classmates than in democratizing who gets to participate in political and public discourse.

Personal gains from the internet and call to action

Life-changing opportunities via the internet

College access through a phone-written essay[12:03]
• Deja declares that she stands before the audience because of the internet.
• She shares that the college essay she wrote on her phone earned her a place at her dream university.
• She received a full-ride scholarship and was the first in her family to go to college.
Campaign work via Instagram DM[12:12]
• A direct message on Instagram led to a job for her on a history-making presidential campaign.
Online following supporting political run[12:20]
• She says that the following she built online became the support she needed to launch her very first run for office.

Belief in the internet and collective responsibility

Affirming the internet's promise[12:35]
• Deja states plainly that she believes in the promise of the internet.
Invitation to join the fight for a better digital future[12:38]
• She asks the audience to join her generation in fighting for the internet's promise.
• She closes by inviting everyone to build the digital future together and thanks the audience.

Show outro and production credits

Identifying the talk and TED curation info

Talk attribution and year[13:03]
• Elise notes that the listener just heard Deja Fox speaking at TED 2025.
Curation guidelines reference[13:00]
• Listeners curious about TED's curation are directed to TED.com slash curation guidelines.

Credits and production team

Positioning within TED Audio Collective[13:05]
• Elise says that TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective.
Fact-checking and production staff[13:06]
• She notes that the talk was fact-checked by the TED Research Team.
• The episode was produced and edited by Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tansika Sangmarnivong.
• The episode was mixed by Christopher Fasey-Bogan.
• Additional support came from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo.
Host sign-off[13:19]
• Elise signs off by saying she will be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for the listener's feed and thanks them for listening.

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Viral visibility can open powerful doors but also exposes you to serious risks, so you need intentional strategies and trusted allies to manage your online presence and protect your wellbeing.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What concrete boundaries do I need to set around my social media use to protect my mental and emotional health?
  • • How can I identify and cultivate a small group of people I trust enough to help me manage crises or harassment online if they arise?
  • • What steps could I take this week to audit my digital footprint and reduce unnecessary exposure or vulnerabilities?
2

When institutions and platforms fail to protect people from harm, communities can create grassroots systems of care and mutual aid that are faster and more humane.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in my life am I relying on large institutions to solve problems that my immediate community could address more effectively?
  • • How might I contribute to or initiate a mutual-aid style support network for people in my circles who face similar online or offline challenges?
  • • What is one small, concrete act of support I could offer to someone in my digital community who might be struggling silently?
3

Platform design-governance, business model, moderation, and privacy defaults-directly shapes user safety, agency, and dignity, so choosing and building tools with values-aligned architectures is a strategic act.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What platforms am I using daily, and how do their business models incentivize behavior that either supports or undermines my values?
  • • How could I shift some of my activity toward tools and communities whose structures better protect privacy, safety, and respectful dialogue?
  • • What questions should I ask about any new app or platform before investing my time and data into it?
4

Young people, and especially girls, can wield digital tools to build narrative and political power even from precarious circumstances, turning personal experiences into broader movements.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What personal experience of mine could, if shared thoughtfully, resonate with others and highlight a larger systemic issue?
  • • How might I use the digital platforms I already have access to in more purposeful ways to advocate for something that matters to me?
  • • What is one story I could tell this month-through writing, video, or conversation-that connects my life to a cause I care about?
5

We are not locked into existing social platforms; users can migrate to and help build alternatives that better reflect their values, gradually shifting where public discourse takes place.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Which platforms do I currently feel misaligned with, and what specifically about their culture or incentives bothers me most?
  • • How could I experiment with alternative communities or tools over the next few weeks to see if they better fit the kind of online world I want to inhabit?
  • • What small but deliberate change could I make this month to move even 10% of my online activity to more values-aligned spaces?

Episode Summary - Notes by Drew

Going viral taught me the internet is broken - but fixable | Deja Foxx
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