Book launch: Users
How Big Tech Took Control and How to Fight Back
A conversation with Beeban Kidron, Sonia Livingstone and Peter Wanless
25 June | 4:00-5:00 pm BST | Register here or pre-order
“Beeban Kidron has spent her life watching what Big Tech does to childhood. We fight the same battle: to change design choices that exploit and destroy our children, our truth, our democracies. Users is her reckoning and her roadmap: we must demand better - but only if we have the courage. Read it. Then join our fight”
The Digital Futures for Children centre (DFC), a joint research centre between LSE and 5Rights Foundation, invites you to an online launch of Users, the powerful new book by crossbench peer and leading advocate for children’s rights in the digital environment, Baroness Beeban Kidron.
The launch will take the form of a conversation between Beeban Kidron, Sonia Livingstone and Peter Wanless. Join us for a timely and thought-provoking discussion on one of the most urgent issues shaping our digital futures.
“Beeban has been inspirational in galvanising the creative industries against Big Tech’s attempt to hijack our creative rights. This book will help us understand how high the stakes are and how we can fight back.”
Event details
Date: 25 June | 4:00-5:00 pm BST
Location: Online via Zoom (registration required)
Hosted by: Digital Futures for Children centre (DFC), 5 Rights Foundation, Department of Media and Communications, LSE
About the speakers
Baroness Beeban Kidron
OBE, is a Crossbench Peer in the House of Lords and an advocate for children’s rights in the digital world. She is the Honorary President, founder and former Chair of the 5Rights Foundation, a charity that works to create policy and practical solutions to build the digital world children and young people deserve, and a Visiting Professor in Practice at LSE. 5Rights funds the Digital Futures for Children centre and Baroness Kidron chairs the Management Committee.
Professor Sonia Livingstone
DPhil (Oxon), OBE, FBA, FBPS, FAcSS, FRSA, is a full professor in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. She has published 20 books and advised the UK government, European Commission, European Parliament, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Council of Europe, OECD, ITU and UNICEF on media audiences, children and young people’s risks and opportunities, media literacy and rights in the digital environment. She directs the Digital Futures for Children centre (DFC).
Sir Peter Wanless
Peter was CEO of NSPCC for 11 years, finishing his tenure in late 2025. Peter is currently Chair of the Board of Trustees at 5Rights Foundation, and has served as a Trustee of 5Rights since 2018. Peter also an experienced advisor, and is currently serving as Independent Safeguarding Adviser for Nord Anglia Education, and a Advisory Group Member of Common Sense Media UK.
About the book
In Users, legislator and campaigner Beeban Kidron takes you on a journey from Parliament and the UN to the White House and Silicon Valley. Through her encounters with undercover police, bereaved parents, lobbyists and tech bros, you’ll witness the unchecked power of big tech, as they avoid the rules and regulation and capture governments that are meant to protect us.
You’ll see how the issue is not technology itself, but its use and abuse. How tools built to connect people are redeployed to divide, punish, distract, and control; while our tech overlords come to own everything – but continue to be held responsible for nothing. Now that we know their game, it’s time to fight back. This book will show you what went wrong, what is really going on, and what we can do about it.
More about the book and how to order
See the Digital Futures for Children centre's other events