The parent company of Facebook, Meta would have hired a Republican lobby in the United States to create a national false news campaign about the dangers of using the TikTok social network, according to The Washington Post newspaper.
According to the post, Facebook paid Republican consultancy Targeted Victory to publish op-eds and letters to the editor in major regional media outlets to undermine its main Chinese-owned competitor, ByteDance.
This was confirmed by several employees of Targeted Victory, who leaked a series of emails to this medium to show that they developed a media campaign to alert younger American users of the dangers of using the application, according to the Europa Press agency.
One of those emails includes a statement of intent from one of the directors of this Republican lobby group, who noted that TikTok is the “number one app for sharing data from the youth and teens who use it.”
In this disinformation campaign, members of Targeted Victory were also encouraged to highlight that, due to the rise of TikTok, the platform was managing to divert attention from the measures carried out by Meta in terms of privacy and antitrust.
In other emails, this Republican lobby urged its partners and employees to filter alleged dangerous behavior associated with TikTok that could put teenagers at risk in the local media.
In relation to this, The Washington Post reports that a spokesperson for the Chinese platform indicated that TikTok was “deeply concerned” about “the revival of local media reports about alleged trends” that had not been noticed on its platform.
From this newspaper they have reported that Targeted Victory has refused to clarify more details about the campaign and has only indicated that it is “proud” of the work it has done during the years it has been collaborating with Meta.
