In a video ad that ran on Facebook in late July, former blogger turned video host Jill Simonian alleges that “American schools have traded knowledge-based education for activism.” Plato and civics are no longer part of the curriculum, she says. The accompanying text reads, “What has happened to American schools? Radical ideas about gender, race, and anti-Americanism are infiltrating the classroom. Is there anywhere that’s still safe for our kids? Yes! It’s called PragerU Kids.” The ad, according to Facebook owner Meta’s own disclosure, reached more than 20,000 people.
The video is one of more than 100 ads that PragerU Kids, an arm of the right-wing nonprofit media organization, PragerU—which is named after conservative talk radio host and cofounder Dennis Prager—has pushed out on Facebook and Instagram over the past two months, according to a new report from Media Matters for America (MMFA), a media watchdog group.
The advertising blitz comes in the run-up to the start of the US school year, and at a moment where schools have become a focus of an intense culture war that is likely to roll on into the 2024 presidential election. And, it appears to be in violation of Meta’s advertising transparency rules, which require ads around “social issues, elections, or politics” to be labeled, and to include information about who has paid for them. That rule was put in place in 2018, after Meta faced scrutiny over foreign interference in the 2016 US presidential elections. But PragerU Kids’ example suggests those rules aren’t being consistently enforced, meaning political groups can push their messages to users without having to disclose their motives or funding.
“One of our biggest concerns more recently is that Meta has clearly started to backslide on some of their policies around the upcoming 2024 election,” says Kayla Gogarty, research director at MMFA. “They have a history of letting these right-wing organizations and figures flout their policies.”
PragerU Kids did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
It’s hard to see PragerU’s advertising as anything other than political. The organization has made videos arguing against the $15 minimum wage, questioning climate change, and in support of increased gun ownership. Videos on its website, which are also shared and promoted on its Facebook page, include topics like “How To Be a Rational Patriot” and “Preferred Pronouns or Prison,” which allege that using someone’s preferred pronouns is a form of “totalitarian thinking” and assert that America offers “personal freedom in a way no other country does.” A quick trip to PragerU Kids’ website finds animated videos about former US presidents, the biblical figure Joseph, and issues in other countries twisted to feature conservative talking points, such as how the “human cost of reducing emissions” has hurt the fictional character Ania in Poland, and how the “British Empire lifted India out of a long tradition of caste discrimination.” (British colonialism in South Asia led to the deaths of millions of people).
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