Meta and Google fund the kids groups they cite back at regulators
An eight-month investigation arc, a $6m bellwether verdict, and a National PTA that has now resigned its Meta sponsorship. The line between independent expert and corporate spokesperson is, on the evidence, a budget item.
Meta and Google have spent years funding a network of US parent and child-safety organisations that turn up, again and again, as third-party endorsers when the two companies need an independent voice in front of regulators.
Reuters reported the practice on Thursday, picking up an investigative thread that the Tech Transparency Project began pulling in August, and which the National PTA itself appeared to confirm in February when it ended a 15-year corporate relationship with Meta and declined to renew it for 2026.
The list is not short. Meta is a long-standing corporate sponsor of the National PTA, the Family Online Safety Institute (where it sits on the board), ConnectSafely, and PROJECT ROCKIT in Australia.
It...
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