Meta’s Newspaper Ad Blitz Ups Pressure on Social Media Rivals

Meta Platforms Inc. is intensifying its public pressure campaign on TikTok and YouTube, running full-page advertisements in top newspapers across the US demanding its rivals make comparable efforts to strengthen social media protections for teens.

Earlier this week, Meta signed a historic settlement of as much as $18 billion with US states requiring new safety features across Instagram and Facebook, including restrictions on the amount of time teens spend on the platforms. But in an unusual twist, the deal stipulates that Meta will only pay some of the settlement unless its competitors follow suit by committing to fines and similar concessions on their own platforms. The arrangement is aimed at incentivizing industry wide change and acknowledges that kids will simply shift their attention to other outlets if they’re restricted on Instagram.

“We want to ensure teens benefit from this new industry standard, but we cannot do it alone,” according to the ads. “These protections will only be truly effective if we work with our peers – TikTok and YouTube – to put the same measures in place.”

TikTok and YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet Inc.’s Google, have been embroiled in multiple similar lawsuits as part of broader litigation around alleged social media addiction in minors. California Attorney General Rob Bonta said this week that the states are interested in a broad solution and want others, including Snap Inc., to take similar steps to Meta’s.

“For meaningful progress to happen, we urge our peers to join us,” Meta wrote in the ads.

The notices began running Thursday and Friday – and the blitz will continue throughout the weekend – in national editions of newspapers including The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and New York Post.

Meta, known as Facebook at the time, adopted a similar strategy in 2018 after the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, in which data was collected from tens of millions of Facebook users and used for political targeting during the 2016 US presidential election. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg apologized then for a “breach of trust” in full-page ads in American and British newspapers.