A new report claims Facebook’s parent company Meta paid a GOP consulting firm to praise it in the media while also attacking competitor TikTok.
Facebook, namely its parent company Meta, has been paying a Republican consulting firm to run a hate campaign against its rival social media platform TikTok, The Washington Post alleges. According to the article, which was published on Wednesday, March 30, the firm, Targeted Victory, reportedly used multiple tactics to target TikTok, a platform notoriously popular with Generation Z users. In contrast, Facebook has not only been shedding active users, but has increasingly struggled to lure back teens who have largely abandoned it in favor of newer alternatives. The smear campaign supposedly included writing letters to the editors of various news companies in hopes of boosting negative coverage about TikTok and risky trends that allegedly started on the platform. In an email written in February, Targeted Victory’s director reportedly said the firm needed to present TikTok as an actual threat at a time when Facebook was getting so much negative attention, doing so by, among other things, emphasizing the fact it is owned by a Chinese company.
