Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former Director of Global Public Policy at Facebook and author of “Careless People,” revealed to U.S. senators during her testimony on Wednesday that Meta had intentionally targeted teens with advertisements based on their emotional states.
Wynn-Williams first made the accusation in her recently published book, detailing her experiences at Facebook and describing a company culture among top executives that she characterized as reckless and indifferent to social responsibilities. She specifically highlighted founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former COO Sheryl Sandberg, claiming their actions revealed a troubling lack of concern over the considerable societal impacts facilitated by the platform.
Though Wednesday’s hearing primarily addressed Meta’s interactions with China and how the company might have misrepresented those dealings during previous Congressional testimonies, lawmakers took time to raise concerns about Instagram, recalling earlier probes into the application’s mental health impacts on young users back in 2021.
Responding to Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Wynn-Williams confirmed that Meta targeted users aged 13 to 17 with ads designed to resonate with their emotional vulnerabilities. She explained that the platform could identify when adolescents were experiencing negative emotions, such as feeling depressed, inadequate, or anxious. These insights were then shared with advertisers eager to exploit the teens’ emotional vulnerabilities, capitalizing on the notion that emotionally down individuals tend to be more susceptible to marketing and purchases.
Illustrating her allegations, Wynn-Williams described an example wherein a teen girl deleting a selfie might signal to marketers that the user was feeling insecure, prompting them to serve targeted beauty product advertisements. Similarly, ads promoting weight loss solutions were aimed at teenage girls experiencing self-image and body confidence issues.
According to Wynn-Williams, the motive behind this troubling practice was clear: Meta considered adolescents one of its most lucrative demographics for targeted advertising. She recounted a conversation with a senior executive who explicitly stated that Meta should proudly advertise its dominant market position with teenage consumers, characterizing the age group as immensely valuable to advertisers.
Wynn-Williams, at the time, argued internally that a global trillion-dollar business shouldn’t resort to exploiting vulnerable groups for incremental financial gains.
The Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism also presented internal exchanges evidencing similar practices extending beyond teenagers. In one message, a Facebook policy director questioned whether the platform researched the emotional states of young mothers. A colleague confirmed that such research was carried out, even jokingly referring to it as something their “apparently morally bankrupt colleagues” might do.
Wynn-Williams added that Silicon Valley executives’ awareness of such harms didn’t align with their private choices about their own children. She noted her shock at discovering how many senior executives prohibited their teens from using Facebook or Instagram—a position she described as hypocrisy, given their active promotion of the products for public consumption.
In response, Meta issued a statement categorically dismissing Wynn-Williams’ testimony, describing the claims as entirely false and disconnected from reality.
