Youth, Trust and Technology (YTT) is a joint research project between UTS and UNSW, funded by the Trustworthy Digital Society (TDS). The project investigated how young people experience life within the rapidly emerging landscape of harmful synthetic media. The literature review pointed to two gaps: a) research around synthetic media and deepfakes has focused mainly on technological issues; and b) young people, despite being among the most active users of social media—a native habitat of deepfakes—are often excluded from serious decision-making about its governance and, in Australia, are now subject to a social media age restriction. To investigate these gaps, we positioned YTT research at the intersection of governance, technology and culture and designed a system of interacting virtual spaces, including a simulated social-media-like platform. Data generation was conducted over 10 weeks, with one hour of synchronous and one hour of asynchronous participation each week, involving 21 UTS students through the application of a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) methodology. The study has demonstrated young people's great concern for their future in a world where trust is progressively being eroded, and their interest in actively participating in the mitigation of deepfake risks. Reflecting this interest, participants proposed a networked model in which high school students could use controlled virtual sandboxes to experiment to develop better understandings of deepfakes and associated harms, explore and develop approaches to their regulation, and critically challenge the cultural norms that enable them.

Dr Elena Petrova is an Industry Fellow at UTS and lead researcher on the Youth, Trust and Technology project. She gained her PhD in Education from Monash University in the field of interdisciplinary and multimodal knowledge production, Melbourne, and previously worked as a secondary school teacher. Her research interests include digital knowledge-construction methodologies, multimodal pedagogies, civic education, and political and subcultural movements among young people in the age of digital media.

Keith Heggart is an Associate Professor at the University of Wollongong whose research explores education, democracy, digital technologies, and teacher development. His work spans civics and citizenship education, educational technology, artificial intelligence, and teacher retention, with a focus on translating research into policy, practice, and meaningful educational innovation.

Contact the host of CREDS Seminar with Keith Heggart & Elena Petrova: Young People as Active Agents in Deepfake Governance: Insights from Youth, Trust and Technology