The Washington Post put out a piece on Wednesday that Facebook parent company Meta are paying one of the biggest political consulting firms in the US to orchestrate a blistering crusade seeking to turn the public against rival TikTok.
The campaign includes placing op-eds and letters to the editor in major regional news outlets, promoting dubious stories about alleged TikTok trends that actually originated on Facebook, and pushing to draw political reporters and local politicians into helping take down their biggest competitor. These bare-knuckle tactics, long commonplace in the world of politics, have become increasingly noticeable within a tech industry where companies vie for cultural relevance and come at a time when Facebook are under pressure to win back young users.
The firm, Targeted Victory allegedly undermined the Chinese-owned app that has become one of the most downloaded apps in the world, often outranking even Meta’s popular Facebook and Instagram apps through a nationwide media and lobbying campaign portraying it as a danger to American children and society, according to internal emails shared with The Washington Post.
Check out this video clip where CGTN Anchor Wang Guan breaks it down in the latest episode of “Reality Check with WangGuan”:
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone defended the campaign by saying, “We believe all platforms, including TikTok, should face a level of scrutiny consistent with their growing success”.
And a TikTok spokesperson said the company are “deeply concerned” about “the stoking of local media reports on alleged trends that have not been found on the platform”.
It’s plain to see that Meta are increasingly fighting dirty and methinks it's all part of an insidious grand plan to promote American hegemony on the social media scene!
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