Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams says company targeted ads at teens based on their ’emotional state’

Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former Director of Global Public Policy for Facebook and author of the recently released tell-all book “Careless People,” told U.S. senators during her testimony on Wednesday that Meta actively targeted teens with advertisements based on their emotional state. This claim was first documented by Wynn-Williams in her book, which documents her time at Facebook and the “careless” disregard from its top execs, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former COO Sheryl Sandberg, about the power the tech company wields in the world and its capability to do harm. Though the focus of Wednesday’s hearing was largely on Meta’s dealings with China and how it may have misrepresented its plans in prior Congressional hearings, the senators were also keen to ask about Instagram, given that the social app had been the subject of earlier Congressional investigations into Meta’s harms to children back in 2021. In response to a question from Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R ... Read full article.