In 2018, it hired the PR firm Definers to
do opposition research on the company's critics, including billionaire
philanthropist George Soros. The company's longtime head of communications,
Elliot Schrage, took the blame for approving the hiring of Definers and similar
firms and left Facebook.
On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported
that Meta, Facebook's parent company, is using similar tactics to go after
another rival TikTok. Meta, the Post reported, hired a Republican consulting
firm called Targeted Victory to “orchestrate a nationwide campaign” against
TikTok.
Targeted Victory, according to the Post,
contracted with dozens of public relations firms across the US to help “sway
public opinion against TikTok” by planting local news stories and helping place
op-eds targeting TikTok around the country, the story says.
Meta confirmed that it has hired Targeted
Victory.
“We believe all platforms, including
TikTok, should face a level of scrutiny consistent with their growing
success," spokesman Andy Stone said in a statement.
Zac Moffatt, the CEO of Targeted Victory,
said the company “manages bipartisan teams on behalf of our clients.”
“It is public knowledge we have worked with
Meta for several years and we are proud of the work we have done,” he said in a
statement.
The Post obtained internal emails from
Targeted Victory that outlined a campaign to undermine TikTok, which is owned
by the Chinese company ByteDance. The firm used a mix of “genuine concerns and
unfounded anxieties” about TikTok in order to try to turn public and political
sentiment against it.
According to the report, Targeted Victory
was also working to get “proactive coverage” about Facebook into local media,
including “submitting letters and opinion pieces speaking glowingly of
Facebook's role in, for instance, supporting Black-owned businesses.”
“We are deeply concerned that the stoking of local media reports on alleged trends that have not been found on the platform could cause real world harm,” TikTok said in an emailed statement.
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