This is not a good look for Zuck and Co.
According to a new report from The Financial Times, last year, Meta and Google collaborated on a covert ad project designed to target teenagers with promotions for Instagram on YouTube. This violated YouTube’s rules on advertising, which prohibit personalized ad targeting to users under the age of 18. The benefit for Google was ad dollars, while Meta was seeking to reach younger audiences to compete with TikTok. The process may have been confused within the acquisition process.
The program was operated by an intermediary called Spark Foundry, tasked by Meta to reach more teen users. Representatives from YouTube advised Spark on how to use unattributed targeting groups to reach teen users. Spark initiated the campaign on Meta’s behalf, effectively focusing promos on teens with plausible deniability. The revelation comes at a time when the U.S. Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act, which imposes a stronger duty of care on social platforms to protect children from harmful online content. YouTube is investigating the claims, and the Kids Online Safety Act is waiting to be passed by the House of Representatives.