By Annie Bang, Bloomberg
Instagram owner Meta Platforms Inc. has paid for thousands of television commercials to promote its safety work with teens ahead of a landmark jury trial that will examine whether the company builds products deliberately to get kids addicted to social media.
The ads have appeared on live broadcasts across national networks including CNN, Fox and ABC for the past several months, running more than 3,500 times since November, according to public data collected by the Tech Oversight Project, a Big Tech accountability organization. The ads promote the company’s teen accounts on Instagram, which limit a teen user’s contacts and content settings.
After temporarily halting the ads in January, Meta resumed its campaign ahead of the teen addiction trial, which started this week in Los Angeles. Alongside Google’s YouTube, Meta is facing claims that its products were built to keep young people scrolling — allegations that have drawn comparisons to Big Tobacco’s reckoning with consumer addiction three decades ago.
Television ads at this scale can cost hundreds and thousands of dollars, according to advertising firm AdImpact. The ads, which also appeared on smaller local stations in addition to national broadcasts, also draw a price premium since viewers are unable to skip the commercials. AdImpact’s data shows that Meta spent nearly $700,000 on just one of the teen ads, which has garnered 6.5 million impressions since last April.
Meta declined to share how much it spends promoting teen accounts, but a spokesperson said the company has been advertising them since they debuted in September 2024 following years of backlash. “Hundreds of millions of teens worldwide use teen accounts,” Meta said in a statement. “Since launch, teens have seen less sensitive content, experienced less unwanted contact, and spent less time on Instagram overnight.”
Meta and its industry peers have faced scrutiny for an alleged failure to protect young people online, and its algorithms have been called responsible for causing mental health issues in teenagers. The landmark trial in Los Angeles will serve as a critical test for thousands of similar pending lawsuits across the country.
The timing of Meta’s ad campaign has led some to conclude that the company is trying to get ahead of any potential negative backlash.
“Advertising is always a vehicle to help these brands try to change their image or persuade the audience to think more about things they did do well in the face of potential scrutiny,” said Don Norton, AdImpact’s general manager of data solutions.
Tech Oversight Project Executive Director Sacha Haworth said she thinks the campaign by Meta is “one hundred percent an influence play” meant to strategically target geographic hot spots, including Los Angeles and Washington, in an effort to sway potential jury members and politicians. Haworth also recalled seeing physical billboard and transportation ads in the targeted regions.
“Generally speaking, Meta takes a much more aggressive approach with its PR,” Haworth said. The ads are part of an effort to “rehab its image in advance of a trial that they know is going to be very, very damaging to them, to their brand.”
Prominent company leaders, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and YouTube’s Neal Mohan, are expected to testify during the trial. Meta previously defended its platforms, arguing that the lawsuits have placed too much blame on social media companies, saying the blame “oversimplifies a serious issue” of teenage mental wellbeing.
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