While the PTA’s break-up with Meta may lessen its ability to engage in one of these tactics, others remain. To brush up on what Meta may still be doing to clean up its reputation, read TTP’s report:
Online child safety group @fairplayforkids.bsky.social applauded the PTA's announcement, saying "Meta is not a company that deserves the halo of esteemed organizations, and we are glad that the National PTA has stopped promoting Instagram to families." fairplayforkids.org/survivor-par...
Meta has also funded academic research that fosters a more benign view of Instagram, with topics including tech-driven mental health interventions, how social media can enable women entrepreneurs, and the role of Instagram communities in promoting daily fitness activity.
Funding groups like the PTA is just one of Meta's many image improvement tactics. Another that TTP highlighted is the creation of a unit called the Trust, Transparency and Control Labs to publish reports about research and consultations that went into Meta's kid-focused efforts.
PTA President Yvonne Johnson also personally supplied a positive quote for Meta's rollout of its "Instagram Teen Accounts." The announcement did not mention that Meta is a corporate sponsor of the group.
Before this recent severing of ties, the National PTA collaborated with Meta on a parent’s guide to Instagram, and held a series of Meta-sponsored events across the country to promote the Instagram teen features.
TTP documented Meta’s myriad tactics to improve its image, including using groups like the PTA to vouch for it in PR campaigns, using a research “lab” to publish reports supporting its kid-focused products, and funding research around positive uses for IG.
NEW: Following TTP’s August 2025 report on how Meta funds and uses groups like the National Parent Teacher Association (PTA) to help shift the narrative around its products’ impact on kids, the PTA has announced an end to its Meta partnership—citing “heightened public scrutiny.”
This apparent disregard for US sanctions is a pattern for X.
Previous TTP research showed how X has provided premium service to sanctioned officials in Iran and sanctioned leaders of Iranian proxy groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthi rebels.
TTP found one of the Iranian government officials who appeared to subscribe to X premium was also using X’s tips feature to request tips in bitcoin, another potential sanctions violation.
The practice also appears to violate X’s own policy, which explicitly prohibits users subject to OFAC sanctions from using its paid services, including premium. archive.ph/k09AZ#select...
In providing paid premium perks to these accounts, X appears to be violating U.S. sanctions, which prohibit U.S. companies from engaging in transactions with sanctioned entities unless they have an exemption or prior authorization.
The sanctioned head of Iran’s Judiciary Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i, who appeared to subscribe to X premium in November 2025, used his premium account perks, including the ability to post videos over 140 seconds long.
Many of these accounts have been using X to spread Iranian government messages and propaganda about the protests. The head of Iran’s judiciary, sanctioned since 2010, posted on Jan. 5 as the regime targeted protesters, “This time, we will show no mercy to the rioters.”
TTP’s investigation uncovered more than two dozen X accounts associated with Iranian government officials and organizations that displayed a blue checkmark—typically indicating a paid subscription fee to receive premium perks.
NEW: Elon Musk has signaled support for the recent anti-government protests in Iran.
But a TTP investigation shows that X appears to be providing premium service to an array of Iranian officials and state-controlled media organizations that have been targeted by U.S. sanctions.
The arrangement with these games is part of a broader pattern of Facebook’s disregard for the financial security of its users—underscored by an internal projection that 10% ($16bil) of its 2024 revenue may have come from ads for fraudulent or banned products.
TTP also found hundreds of ads from sweepstakes casinos—casino-style games that offer free-to-play options but allow players to spend real money for extended play and offer real cash payouts. They claim to be distinct from gambling, but several states have banned them.
Meta has even bragged about how several social casino app developers use Facebook features to boost their user base, highlighting them as “success stories.”
Facebook's games section includes a “casino” category with dozens of offerings. TTP found a number of these social casino games running ads on Meta platforms to attract new users.
There is an ongoing lawsuit against Facebook brought by over two dozen social casino players who have lost as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars after being hooked.
One executive of a social casino game revealed that the games can adjust their wins and losses instead of providing random results, saying: “We can do things to make our games more [fun] that if you were an operator in Vegas you’d go to jail for..." www.geekwire.com/2011/qa-behi...
Although “social casino” games say they are free to play, when the free tokens run out, players can use real money to buy virtual coins and keep playing. Players never have a chance to win back any real money, and many have reported becoming addicted.
NEW: Online social casinos and sweepstakes casino games can leave users deeply in debt.
A new TTP report details how Facebook—a leading platform for these games—helps attract and hook players while collecting a slice of the revenue for itself.
Both Apple and Google emphasize user safety as a key pillar of their review processes.
But their repeated failure to reject “nudify” apps—before they were downloaded millions of times—harms not just users, but an unknown number of victims who have had their image sexualized.
Writing about this “moral low ground,” @malcolmowen.bsky.social points out that "The failure doesn't just stop at the developer, either, as the apps had to pass the App Store Review Process and be approved before being allowed in the App Store in the first place."
Update: After TTP informed Apple and Google of the dozens of “nudify” apps in their stores, both companies removed many of them. Apple took down 27, Google 31.
But the swift takedown—and tacit admission the apps broke store rules—raises serious questions about their approval processes.
After CNBC and @ttp-updates.bsky.social contacted Apple and Google about dozens of nudify apps on their respective app stores, the two companies removed dozens of these services from their platforms, but several remain www.cnbc.com/2026/01/27/a... Check out this report by @lolavkm.bsky.social
