Meta is running paid influencer campaigns across multiple countries promoting its Teen Accounts safety tools, using parents and celebrities with large followings to argue that parental controls are a better answer to child safety concerns than outright bans on social media for users under 16, according to a report from Rest of World based on research by the Tech Transparency Project.
The campaign is active in countries including India, Canada, and Indonesia, and comes as Australia, Brazil, and Indonesia have already banned social media for under-16s, with at least 22 other countries reportedly considering similar measures. Meta pays Instagram parent influencers, celebrities, and in some cases child safety groups to promote Teen Accounts, a feature launched in 2024 that gives 13- to 16-year-olds private accounts, screen-time limits, and age-restricted content.
“Meta will be cut off from young people who are essential to its growth plans” if more countries follow Australia’s lead, Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project, told Rest of World. She said the underlying message of the campaign is that Meta can self-regulate child safety, making bans unnecessary.
A Campaign Timed to Regulatory Pressure
The influencer push lands days after Meta agreed to pay up to $16.7 billion to settle a case brought by 29 state attorneys general over alleged misrepresentation of child-related mental health harms on Facebook and Instagram. That settlement, approved August 26 by a federal judge in the Northern District of California, requires Meta to add daily usage limits, nighttime blocks for teen users, and enhanced age-assurance measures. It followed a $375 million jury verdict against Meta in New Mexico in March and sits alongside pending multidistrict litigation involving Meta, TikTok, Snap, and YouTube.
Rest of World’s reporting places the influencer campaign in that same window: one featured creator, Indian parenting blogger Snehaalata Shah, posted a promotional reel on July 7, the same day Meta published a statement claiming “zero-tolerance” for child sexual abuse material and said it had removed more than 160,000 accounts.
Influencers involved in the campaign received scripts partly written by agencies working on Meta’s behalf. Shah said she was given “a brief idea where I have to inculcate the teen account features in the middle of the script.” Sonam Jaggi, who runs the 322,000-follower account @momavengers, said her promo reel drew 310 million views, and told Rest of World that “the main takeaway for parents is that there are tools and safeguards available to make social media more age-appropriate for teenagers.”
Not every participant is fully convinced the tools work. A November 2025 report by a Meta whistleblower and several child safety organizations found that 64% of 47 evaluated teen safety features were broken, missing, or ineffective. David Greene, senior counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Rest of World that parental tools and youth accounts remain preferable to bans, though he cautioned that “age estimation technology threatens all users’ privacy by collecting people’s sensitive, personal information, exposing them to risk of data breaches and government data demands.”
Indian actor Hiten Tejwani, who has 732,000 followers and was paid for his participation, said he does not disclose the payment unless asked directly: “It is compensation we have to charge, definitely. But otherwise, if I’m talking about it right now, if somebody’s asking me otherwise, this is not a paid thing. I will definitely inform everyone.”
Dragomir is a Serbian freelance blog writer and translator. He is passionate about covering insightful stories and exploring topics such as influencer marketing, the creator economy, technology, business, and cyber fraud.
