A former top executive at Meta, Sarah Wynn-Williams, has come forward with alarming claims about the company’s ad targeting practices. Speaking at a U.S. Senate hearing, Wynn-Williams, who served as Facebook’s Director of Global Public Policy, alleged that Meta knowingly served advertisements to emotionally vulnerable teenagers, particularly when they felt “worthless or helpless.”
According to Wynn-Williams, Meta could detect when teens aged 13 to 17 were experiencing low self-esteem or emotional distress, and would use that data to target them with specific ads. “It could identify when they were feeling worthless or helpless or like a failure, and [Meta] would take that information and share it with advertisers,” she stated.
The strategy was reportedly designed to exploit moments when teens were more likely to spend money. Advertisers, she said, know that individuals feeling low are more prone to impulsive purchases — a tactic Meta allegedly enabled.
Wynn-Williams went on to explain that if a teen girl deleted a selfie, Meta could alert advertisers to promote beauty products, assuming a dip in confidence. In more troubling cases, she said young girls were even shown weight loss ads, reinforcing negative body image concerns.
Highlighting the company’s mindset, Wynn-Williams claimed that one Meta business leader told her that teens were “the...
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