TTP Report: Inside Meta’s Spin Machine on Kids and Social Media
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 26, 2025
Contact: Michael Clauw, mclauw@campaignforaccountability.org, 202.780.5750
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Meta is using a range of influence tactics to counter growing concerns that social media platforms like Instagram can be harmful to teens’ health and safety, according to a new report from the Tech Transparency Project (TTP).
The tactics include cultivating a network of paid child advocacy groups that go to bat for the company in public relations campaigns, using a social research “lab” to publish reports in support of its kid-focused products, and funding academic research that highlights positive use cases for Instagram—supporting the company’s contention that research is inconclusive on whether social media is bad for minors.
TTP, an initiative of Campaign for Accountability, details Meta’s extensive and often opaque influence apparatus in a new report out today.
“There’s a growing consensus that social media can be harmful to children. But instead of meaningfully addressing that problem, Meta is trying to blunt the issue through a sophisticated spin operation,” said Campaign for Accountability Executive Director Michelle Kuppersmith. “As with many things Meta does, the underlying goal appears to be avoiding accountability and regulation.”
Meta funds a collection of parent and child safety groups—including the National PTA—that support its initiatives involving kids. The National PTA took part in the rollout of Instagram Teen Accounts, collaborated with Meta on a parent’s guide to Instagram, and held a series of Meta-sponsored community events across the country to promote the Instagram teen features. This gives a sheen of expert approval to Meta’s effort to keep young users engaged on its platforms.
Meta has also created a unit called the Trust, Transparency and Control Labs that publishes reports about the research and consultations that went into its kid-focused initiatives, including Instagram Teen Accounts, the Messenger Kids app, and the opening of the Horizon Worlds metaverse to teens. Meta has at times framed these “labs” as a separate organization to regulators and others, leaving the impression that an independent entity has signed off on its products.
Meanwhile, Meta has funded an array of academic research projects that foster a more benign view of Instagram, one of the most popular social networks for teens. The topics of study include technology-driven mental health interventions, how social media platforms can enable women entrepreneurs, and the role of Instagram communities in promoting daily fitness activity. By funding these studies, the company provides fodder for its assertion that academic research is inconclusive on whether social media is harmful on young people.
“Meta is not funding these efforts to gain a benevolent understanding of how its products affect kids,” Kuppersmith added. “These tactics appear reverse-engineered to justify the company’s continued efforts to attract young users—and fight against substantive child safety rules.”
Campaign for Accountability is a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog organization that uses research, litigation, and aggressive communications to expose misconduct and malfeasance in public life and hold those who act at the expense of the public good accountable for their actions.