Meta and Google face scrutiny over child safety partnerships and design

Meta and Google poured tens of millions of dollars into children’s brands and advocacy groups that taught moderation, digital well-being and personal responsibility, even as both companies kept building products around high engagement and constant use. Those partnerships reached hundreds of thousands of children and parents, putting trusted names such as Sesame Street, Girl Scouts of the USA and Highlights magazine in front of families at the same time the tech giants were drawing criticism over how their own platforms hold attention.

The tension is more than cosmetic. Meta’s Safety Center says it works with experts, non-governmental groups and parents on child safety and youth well-being. Google says its public materials support digital well-being and child-safety education through partnerships that include Girl Scouts and Sesame Workshop. Critics argue that the arrangement lets the companies present themselves as part of the solution while their core business models still reward scrolling, prolonged use and advertising revenue.

Internal Meta documents add another layer to the scrutiny. They show the company has discussed how to respond to accusations that its platforms are harmful to children, underscoring how sensitive the issue has become for a company under pressure to defend both its products and its public image. For families already wary of social media’s effect on young users, the optics are difficult to ignore.

Rose Bronstein, a parent advocate whose 15-year-old son died by suicide after online bullying, has compared the partnerships to a tobacco company sponsoring anti-smoking education. The comparison captures the central mistrust driving this debate: whether corporate philanthropy is a sincere attempt to improve child safety or a reputation-management tool that softens scrutiny without changing the incentives built into the platforms themselves.

Health guidance from major public institutions strengthens that concern. The American Academy of Pediatrics says children under 18 months should generally avoid screen media except for video chatting, and that children ages 2 to 5 should have screen use limited to about one hour a day. Its 2026 policy warns that digital ecosystems prioritizing engagement and commercialization can encourage prolonged use and displace healthy behaviors. The World Health Organization says children under 5 should spend less time in screen-based sedentary activity and more time in active play and sleep.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also linked frequent social media use among U.S. high school students with higher levels of bullying victimization, persistent sadness or hopelessness, and some suicide-risk indicators. That broader evidence gives the scrutiny around Meta and Google a wider policy edge: the fight over children’s media use is no longer only about parental controls or content moderation, but about whether companies that profit from attention can credibly act as educators about healthy screen habits.