Meta has hired a top GOP consulting firm to gin up rage against TikTok and deflect political scrutiny away from Facebook and Instagram, according to a report on Wednesday.
The consulting firm, Targeted Victory, pushed to “get the message out that while Meta is the current punching bag, TikTok is the real threat especially as a foreign owned app that is #1 in sharing data that young teens are using,” according to an internal email from February reported by the Washington Post.
Targeted Victory reportedly advanced Meta’s agenda by pushing news stories blaming dangerous online trends such as the “slap a teacher challenge” on TikTok — even though the trend actually originated on Facebook.
The group also helped place op-eds and letters to the editor in local papers like the Denver Post and Des Moines Register, raising concerns about China “deliberately collecting behavioral data on our kids,” according to the report.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has blamed TikTok for Facebook’s slowing user growth, which has contributed to its stock tanking 32.5% so far this year.
Hellbound and Down 