(Isstories Editorial):- Boston, Massachusetts Mar 18, 2025 (Issuewire.com) – Smartphone Free Childhood US (SFCxUS), a grassroots movement bringing parents together to stand up for healthier, happier childhoods, is calling on the National Parent Teacher Association (NPTA) to end its partnership with Meta and other social media companies. Citing Meta’s lengthy track record of knowingly failing to protect children online in its relentless pursuit of profit, the group is inviting concerned individuals to sign a letter to NPTA leadership asking them to end these partnerships. To date, more than 370 people have signed the letter, including PTA presidents, PTA members, parents, medical professionals, mental health experts, child advocacy leaders, and best-selling authors.
With the growing youth mental health crisis exacerbated by social media use, SFCxUS argues that NPTA’s partnership with Meta, which is involved in active lawsuits from 40 states and more than 1,400 school districts across the U.S. over the harm its platforms cause to children, is irresponsible and sends the wrong message.
“NPTA has done vital work over the last 100+ years in supporting children and public education, but its decision to accept sponsorship money from social media companies that exploit the vulnerabilities of minors for profit is out of alignment with its values and threatens to tarnish its legacy as the nation’s oldest child advocacy association,” said Jodi Carreon, SFCxUS Co-Lead.
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The letter details several key issues with Meta’s practices, including deliberately designing its platforms to capture kids’ attention for maximum amounts of time, often to the detriment of their mental health; knowingly allowing millions of underage users to create Instagram accounts; facilitating child sexual abuse on its platforms; and failing to remove child sexual abuse material as well as content promoting eating disorders, self harm, and suicide from its platforms.
“Meta is trying to monetize children’s attention, and a PTA partnership with them seems like a direct conflict of interest. I find this partnership and promotion of Meta products deeply concerning,” said Jacqueline Dozier, PTA Advocacy Chair in Seattle.
SFCxUS echoes the words of former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who has called for stronger regulations on social media platforms to protect children from harm. “The moral test of any society is how well it protects its children,” said Murthy.
In light of these concerns, SFCxUS is calling for NPTA to end its partnership with not only Meta but other social media companies such as TikTok, YouTube, and Discord, as well as ConnectSafely, a nonprofit that is financially supported by Meta.
Further, the group is asking NPTA to take a stand by offering strong, unbiased guidelines to help families protect children from online harms, emphasizing that this cannot be accomplished through NPTA’s current “Screen Smart” partnership with Meta. The Leadership Council for SFCxUS has offered to meet with NPTA representatives to discuss effective guidelines to better protect children from the dangers of social media.
Richard Freed, PhD, psychologist and author of Better Than Real Life, co-signed the letter to the NTPA, stating, “The National PTA partnering with Meta to supposedly keep kids safe online is no different than if the PTA partnered with Big Tobacco to protect kids from cigarettes. The PTA must do better by our kids!”
Concerned citizens are welcome to sign the letter
