Meta and Google Partnered with Sesame Street and Girl Scouts on Digital Moderation Programs

Meta and Google enlisted trusted children's brands such as Sesame Street and Girl Scouts to teach kids to use technology in moderation even as the companies designed apps that make it difficult for those same young users to unplug, documents show. The documents reveal that both companies pursued parallel strategies.

They partnered with established children's organizations to encourage balanced digital habits while engineering their own products to increase user engagement among minors.

@Reuters reported that the partnerships and the design choices occurred concurrently.

The identical approaches at the two companies indicate a shared industry pattern in product development aimed at youth, according to the documents.

The brands lent their reputations to educational initiatives focused on self-regulation and limited screen time. The dual-track effort placed the children's organizations in the position of promoting restraint against a backdrop of product features that reward prolonged use.

The internal records examined by @Reuters provide the first detailed look at how the companies coordinated with outside children's brands. Sesame Street and the Girl Scouts were among the entities whose names and content were used in moderation-focused programs rolled out by both Meta and Google platforms. Neither company disputed the authenticity of the documents when contacted by @Reuters.

The materials outline workshops, co-branded materials and digital campaigns that positioned the children's brands as authorities on healthy technology use. The apps in question include features such as infinite scroll, autoplay and streak-based rewards that the documents acknowledge are intended to extend session times.

These mechanisms directly counteract the moderation messages promoted through the partnerships with Sesame Street and Girl Scouts.

The partnerships date to at least several years ago, according to timelines contained in the records. They involved both public service announcements and more integrated curriculum-style content that appeared inside Meta and Google products targeted at users under 13.

@Reuters reported that the documents include email correspondence and strategy decks that explicitly discuss the tension between the moderation campaigns and the companies' growth metrics for younger audiences.

One planning memo noted the value of associating with trusted names to offset potential regulatory scrutiny.