Meta used National PTA to promote child safety efforts, report finds
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg tries on Orion AR glasses at the Meta Connect annual event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
Since losing her 15-year-old son Riley to suicide following a sextortion scheme through Meta’s Messenger app, Mary Rodee has worked with advocacy groups to push for stronger protections for children online.
“I hold them solely responsible,” Rodee said about Meta in an interview with CNBC. “They have a responsibility for the safety of their users.”
Rodee is among a number of parents who are increasingly critical of organizations that are supposed to help children stay safe but accept money from Meta and other social media companies. Among these groups is the National Parent Teacher Association.
The National PTA is a nonprofit with more than 20,000 chapters and nearly 4 million members across the country that works with schools and families to advocate for children. The group’s website says its members “share a commitment to improving the education, health and safety of all children.”
A report published Tuesday by tech watchdog organization Tech Transparency Project alleges the group’s relationship with Meta “gives a sheen of expert approval” to the social media company’s “efforts to keep young users engaged on its platforms.” The report claims that Meta’s tactics are used to counter concerns that services like Instagram can be harmful to teens in an attempt to shape the public narrative.
“As Meta has come under growing pressure over its impact on kids and their well-being, the company has responded with a range of tactics to influence the public debate,” TTP wrote.
Meta has sponsored the National PTA for years, while the education advocacy group has promoted the company’s child safety initiatives without always noting its financial ties, TTP found.
The National PTA and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, have worked together since at least 2010. Meta’s presence is listed in the group’s events and social media posts.
“It’s unforgivable,” said Rodee of Canton, New York. “I just can’t get over these groups that convince themselves that there’s not blood on their hands, that this money is clean.”
Both Meta and the National PTA declined to share how much the social media company has contributed to the group.
“We’re proud to partner with expert organizations to educate parents about our safety tools and protections for teens, as many other tech companies do,” a Meta spokesperson told CNBC in a statement.
In a statement to CNBC, the National PTA said that it doesn’t endorse any social media platform and it accepts sponsorship from Meta to have a “seat at the table” and to be a “strong, clear voice for parents and children.”
“Our collaboration with Meta provides an opportunity to help inform families about safety on its apps and the available tools (e.g., parental controls, age-gated features) and resources (e.g., parent’s guides, online safety centers),” the National PTA said in its statement.
Mary Rodee lost her 15-year-old son Riley to suicide following a sextortion scheme through Meta’s Messenger app.
Mary Rodee
Meta worked with the National PTA in 2017 to help roll out Messenger Kids, a chat app for children under 13 that the company said was developed in consultation with parent and safety groups, TTP wrote in its report. Facebook became a founding sponsor of the PTA Connected initiative the following year in 2018, the National PTA said in its statement to CNBC.
The National PTA can often be seen supporting Meta products on its Instagram account. For example, a post shared in June shows a group of PTA members at a digital safety workshop in front of a poster with Meta and the National PTA’s logo.
Riley, Rodee’s son, was a victim of sextortion on Meta’s platforms. Sextortion is the act of threatening to expose sexually compromising information unless certain demands are met. He was blackmailed by a person posing as a teenage girl on Facebook Messenger, Rodee said.
The fake account demanded Riley pay $3,500. He then took his own life, Rodee said. Sextortion schemes like this are on the rise across social media. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security received more than 3,000 sextortion tips in 2022, according to the Justice Department.
The Federal Trade Commission accused Meta in 2023 of misleading parents about their ability to control who their children communicate with on the Messenger Kids app. Meta has denied wrongdoing and is challenging both the FTC’s proposed restrictions and the constitutionality of the agency’s process.
A federal master complaint filed in March 2024 in California by school districts and local governments as part of a multi-district lawsuit against major social media companies alleges that platforms like Instagram and Facebook were intentionally designed to be addictive to young users. The complaint names the National PTA as one of the organizations Meta uses to reach children in schools.
“While Instagram may try to characterize this work as helpful to addressing youth mental health problems, they were more candid in other documents about using this as a strategy to get more teen users,” the filing states. “The goal of the parents plan was to get ‘parents to think, my kids are on social media, and my FAVORITE app for them to be on is Instagram, bar none.'”
In September 2024, Meta announced Instagram Teen Accounts, which gives users between 13 and 17 certain safeguards on the app. The release announcing the accounts included a quote from National PTA President Yvonne Johnson, without disclosing that Meta was a national sponsor of the organization.
“Given that parents today are grappling with the benefits and challenges of the internet and digital media for their teens, our association applauds Meta for launching Instagram Teen Accounts,” Johnson said in the release.
Instagram’s Teen Accounts feature has received mixed responses when it comes to how effectively it protects kids. Some users still saw inappropriate content on Instagram, according to a report from ParentsTogether.
“This strategy of telling parents that these products are safer than they really are puts kids in danger,” said Shelby Knox, online safety campaign director at ParentsTogether.
The Meta spokesperson said that Teen Accounts give protections to limit who can contact teens on Instagram.
Other parent groups like Smartphone Free Childhood U.S. and Parents for Safe Online Spaces have reached out to the National PTA to voice their concern of accepting money from social media companies that they say are dangerous to their children.
The National PTA’s other sponsors also include Google, YouTube, TikTok and Discord.
In 2024, TikTok gave the National PTA more than $300,000 for programs about teens and social media, even as the platform itself faced mounting criticism over its impact on teens.
The PTA is just one example of Meta’s strategy, according to the TTP report. Meta also created Trust, Transparency & Control Labs, also known as TTC Labs, in 2017. The organization works to collaborate on safety efforts.
While TTC Labs is clearly labeled as a Meta creation, TTC has produced reports on Instagram Teen Accounts and Horizon Worlds. Meta has cited these reports as evidence of its commitment to child safety.
Meta and other social media platforms have been blamed for causing harm to children.
A bipartisan group of 42 attorneys general sued Meta in 2023, alleging features on Facebook and Instagram are addictive and are aimed at kids and teens.
In July, Meta said it eliminated 600,000 profiles linked to predatory behavior and enhanced direct messaging protections on Instagram.
“PTAs in schools are trusted organizations, so their support of companies that are using people and children for profit is just unforgivable,” Rodee said.
If you are having suicidal thoughts or are in distress, contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for support and assistance from a trained counselor.
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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang waves to a crowd as he leaves the China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE) in Beijing on July 17, 2025.
Jade Gao | Afp | Getty Images
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said there’s a “real possibility” the company brings its advanced Blackwell processor to China as he urges the U.S. government to open up access for American chipmakers.
He also predicted the artificial intelligence market in the world’s second-biggest economy will grow 50% next year.
“The opportunity for us to bring Blackwell to the China market is a real possibility,” Huang said on Wednesday in a call for Nvidia’s latest quarterly results. “We just have to keep advocating the importance of American tech companies to be able to lead and win the AI race, and help make the American tech stack the global standard.”
Huang personally visited the White House in July and August to secure export licenses for Nvidia’s current-generation chip for Chinese AI, called the H20. In August, the White House announced that President Donald Trump and Huang had struck a deal in which Nvidia would receive export licenses in exchange for 15% of China sales of the H20 going to the U.S. government.
After the meeting, Trump said he was open to making a deal for Blackwell chips, which is Nvidia’s latest AI technology that currently comprises the majority of its data center revenue.
Huang has said that it is better for Chinese AI developers to use Nvidia’s chips rather than force them to use homegrown Chinese options by preventing exports, which could incentivize the Chinese tech industry to catch up.
If Nvidia were to release a Blackwell chip in China, it could spur a large amount of sales as Chinese AI developers opt for the most powerful chips available. Nvidia would have to modify its Blackwell chips for the U.S. market to make them slower in certain aspects in order to comply with U.S. export regulations.
“The Blackwell is super-duper advanced. I wouldn’t make a deal with that,” Trump said in August, before adding that it was possible to make a deal for a “somewhat enhanced in a negative way” version of Blackwell.
Huang’s bullish comments on Wednesday come after the company reported second-quarter year-over-year revenue growth of 56% to $54 billion, despite not selling a single H20 chip to China during the quarter. Nvidia said it released $180 million in H20 inventory to a customer outside of China, which accounted for $650 million in sales.
Nvidia said it is not counting on any H20 sales in the October quarter as part of its forecast for $54 billion in revenue, but that the company could sell between $2 billion and $5 billion in H20 chips, depending on the geopolitical environment.
“If we had more orders, we can build more,” Nvidia finance chief Colette Kress said on the call with analysts.
Nvidia said that while it had received some licenses after the meeting with Trump, the U.S. government has yet to publish official regulations outlining how its cut of sales will work.
“USG officials have expressed an expectation that the USG will receive 15% of the revenue generated from licensed H20 sales, but to date, the USG has not published a regulation codifying such requirement,” Kress said.
Huang told analysts that China is the second-largest AI market in the world.
“The China market I’ve estimated to be about $50 billion of opportunity for us this year, if we were able to address it with competitive products,” Huang said. “And if it’s $50 billion this year, you would expect it to grow, say, 50% per year.”
Recent reports have indicated that the Chinese government is encouraging AI developers to use homegrown chips over those from Nvidia.
“We’re still waiting on several of the geopolitical issues going back and forth between the governments and the companies trying to determine their purchases and what they want to do,” Kress said.
WATCH: Nvidia sales drop more than 4% as chipmaker says no Q2 H20 sales to China-based customers
Boonchai Wedmakawand | Moment | Getty Images
The founder of the company behind the IRL social media app was charged with defrauding investors of $170 million in the company’s 2021 funding round, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.
A federal grand jury in Oakland federal court indicted Abraham Shafi, 38 of Hawaii, with wire fraud, securities fraud and obstruction in connection with the scheme, the DOJ said.
Shafi was the CEO of Get Together, the parent company of IRL. The company was valued at $1 billion after its 2021 Series C funding round. IRL, which shuttered in June 2023, was a platform for users to organize events and offline activities. It found some traction in 2018, ranking among Apple’s top social apps.
Shafi allegedly spent millions on incentive advertising to boost installs of the app leading up to the Series C while maintaining to investors that the company spent “very little” on getting new users, the DOJ said.
He then concealed the expense by invoicing it to another firm, the DOJ said.
The indictment also alleges that the CEO and his fiancée used investor funds for “luxury hotel stays, luxury clothing, purchases from home furnishing retailers, thousands of dollars for art classes, and hundreds of thousands of dollars for SHAFI’s wedding, including payments for wedding guests’ airfare and luxury hotels.”
Shafi told CNBC in February 2018 that investors backed the company on its potential to compete with Facebook and Snapchat. Investors in IRL included Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and the venture firm Floodgate.
Shafi’s co-founders at IRL included Scott Banister, the first board member of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, among others.
Only Shafi was named in the DOJ indictment. He faces a max of 20 years in prison on each count, the DOJ said.
Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Shafi for the same alleged scheme.
“Shafi took advantage of investors’ appetite for investments in the pre-IPO technology space and fraudulently raised approximately $170 million by lying about IRL’s business practices,” Monique Winkler, director of the SEC’s San Francisco Regional Office, said in a release at the time.
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A news ticker outside Fox News headquarters reads: Grand jury votes to indict former President Donald Trump, at the News Corporation building in New York City, U.S., March 31, 2023.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
In less than three days, college football will be showcasing one of its most-highly anticipated week one matchups ever, with top-ranked Texas heading on the road to play reigning national champion and third-ranked Ohio State.
Fox is airing the much-hyped game. YouTube TV subscribers may be out of luck.
Google‘s YouTube said on Monday it may remove channels like Fox Broadcast Network, Fox News and Fox Sports if the company is unable to reach a new agreement with Fox Corp. by 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday. The two sides are still in a standoff, putting YouTube TV customers at risk of missing out on major sporting events and hefty ad dollars in limbo.
For Google, the issue is how much Fox is charging for its content.
“Fox is asking for payments that are far higher than what partners with comparable content offerings receive,” YouTube wrote in its Monday blog post.
YouTube TV has roughly 9.4 million subscribers. Most notably for sports fans, Fox is the home for many upcoming football games, both college and pro. The NFL season begins next week, with Fox set to air games starting on Sunday, Sept. 7
YouTube pays broadcasters like Fox to carry their channels.
In addition to football, Fox shows Major League Baseball games, and the MLB regular season is entering its final stretch. Fox will be airing some playoff games that follow, as well as the World Series, which is scheduled to start in late October.
Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, weighed in on Tuesday.
“Google removing Fox channels from YouTube TV would be a terrible outcome,” he said on X. “Millions of Americans are relying on YouTube to resolve this dispute so they can keep watching the news and sports they want — including this week’s Big Game: Texas @ Ohio State. Get a deal done Google!”
The Texas – Ohio State game has added intrigue as its Arch Manning’s first marquee start as quarterback for the top-ranked Longhorns.
The hefty roster of Fox programs may be enough for sports fans to turn off YouTube TV in favor of other options. One place subscribers could turn to is Fox One, Fox’s standalone streaming service, which just launched last week, ahead of the NFL season. Fox One costs $19.99 per month or $199.99 annually.
The base plan for YouTube TV costs $82.99 per month and includes over 100 live channels and unlimited cloud DVR. If Fox does go offline for an extended period of time, YouTube will give members a $10 credit, the Google company said.
YouTube recently overtook Netflix, which has a market cap of $518 billion, as the top streaming platform in terms of audience engagement.
While YouTube and Fox have set a deadline of Wednesday to reach a deal, it’s common for carriage disputes to result in a deadline extension that would give the parties more time to negotiate.
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