Facebook Parent Defends Its PR Campaign to Portray TikTok as Threat to American Children

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorMeta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is defending its enlistment of a political lobbying firm to plant negative opinion pieces about rival TikTok in U.S.

news outlets — as the social giant tried to deflect attention away from its own PR headaches.The Washington Post on Wednesday reported on Meta’s deal with Targeted Victory, a digital marketing agency that has worked on numerous Republican campaigns.

The Post reported that the firm worked with “dozens” of PR firms to “undermine TikTok through a nationwide media and lobbying campaign,” including spreading reports of false rumors about harmful trends supposedly going viral on TikTok.

Citing emails from Targeted Victory staffers, the report said Targeted Victory sought to portray TikTok — which is owned by Chinese internet giant ByteDance — as “a danger to American children and society.” Targeted Victory says it employs a “right-of-center perspective to solve marketing challenges.” Asked to comment on the Targeted Victory campaign, Meta spokesman Andy Stone said in a statement, “We believe all platforms, including TikTok, should face a level of scrutiny consistent with their growing success.”According to one email cited by the Post, a director at Targeted Victory wrote that the firm needed 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 the report, another Targeted Victory staff member wrote, “Dream would be to get stories with headlines like ‘From dances to danger: how TikTok has become the most harmful social media space for kids.’”A TikTok spokesperson said in statement to.