{"id":2727,"date":"2022-03-31T14:49:11","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T14:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/31\/facebook-funded-anti-tiktok-campaign-through-gop-firm\/"},"modified":"2022-03-31T14:49:13","modified_gmt":"2022-03-31T14:49:13","slug":"facebook-funded-anti-tiktok-campaign-through-gop-firm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/31\/facebook-funded-anti-tiktok-campaign-through-gop-firm\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook funded anti-TikTok campaign through GOP firm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/30\/23003168\/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory-news-column-campaign-gop\">https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/30\/23003168\/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory-news-column-campaign-gop<\/a><br \/>\n<code><br \/><\/br><\/code><\/p>\n<div readability=\"80.552532440352\">\n<p id=\"pAok4f\">Facebook\u2019s parent company, Meta, has been paying one of the most prominent Republican consulting firms to run a nationwide campaign to sow distrust about one of the company\u2019s top competitors, TikTok, according to a new report <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2022\/03\/30\/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory\/\">from <em>The Washington Post<\/em><\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p id=\"79joT6\">The firm, Targeted Victory, reportedly planted op-eds and letters to the editor in major local and regional newspapers across the country. A Targeted Victory director told staff that the firm needed to \u201cget 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,\u201d according to emails obtained by <em>The Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"c-float-right\">\n<aside id=\"4dg6ni\"><q>\u201cTikTok is the real threat\u201d<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"EvfDak\">News of Facebook\u2019s decision to hire the firm comes only a few weeks after the company declared that it was losing users for the first time in its 18-year history. Meta\u2019s recent earnings report said that Facebook\u2019s active users dropped by almost 500,000 at the end of last year. <\/p>\n<p id=\"LqjYnJ\">Several of Targeted Victory\u2019s op-eds contained links to negative news coverage about TikTok and were often bylined by influential community figures and politicians, including Democrats. <em>The Post <\/em>reported that none of the columns disclosed their connection to the Facebook-funded firm.<\/p>\n<p id=\"UiLhLh\">Over the last few years, Facebook has been under fire by Congress for allegedly holding an illegal monopoly in the social media industry. During a 2020 hearing with tech CEOs, including Facebook\u2019s Mark Zuckerberg, lawmakers cited internal company documents suggesting that Zuckerberg would go <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2020\/7\/29\/21335706\/antitrust-hearing-highlights-facebook-google-amazon-apple-congress-testimony\">\u201cdestroy mode\u201d<\/a> if Instagram, a then-nascent competitor, refused to be sold to the social media giant. <\/p>\n<p id=\"yaN7RY\">\u201cWhen the dominant platform threatens its potential rivals, that should not be a normal business practice,\u201d Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said at the time. <\/p>\n<p id=\"FYJaCZ\">Targeted Victory is one of the biggest vendors for Republican campaigns. In 2020, the firm earned over $230 million, and its largest clients were from groups like the pro-Trump super PAC, America First Action. Republicans have been some of TikTok\u2019s harshest critics. Lawmakers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2019\/10\/9\/20906971\/tiktok-censorship-china-bytedance-musically-marco-rubio-senate-mnuchin-cfius-treasury\">like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)<\/a> have pushed for the app to be investigated for censorship, and former President Donald Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2020\/8\/6\/21358093\/trump-tik-tok-ban-bytedance-transactions-executive-order\">signed an executive order<\/a> to ban it outright.<\/p>\n<p id=\"PMzJur\">Ultimately, the order went nowhere, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2021\/6\/9\/22525953\/biden-tiktok-wechat-trump-bans-revoked-alipay\">President Joe Biden revoked it<\/a> last year. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><code><br \/><\/br><\/code><\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/30\/23003168\/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory-news-column-campaign-gop\">https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/30\/23003168\/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory-news-column-campaign-gop<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Facebook\u2019s parent company, Meta, has been paying one of the most prominent Republican consulting firms to run a nationwide campaign to sow distrust about one of the company\u2019s top competitors, TikTok, according to a new report from The Washington Post on Wednesday. The firm, Targeted Victory, reportedly planted op-eds and letters to the editor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-2727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-policy","category-technology","tag-policy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Facebook funded anti-TikTok campaign through GOP firm - Science and Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/31\/facebook-funded-anti-tiktok-campaign-through-gop-firm\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Facebook funded anti-TikTok campaign through GOP firm - Science and Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Source: Facebook\u2019s parent company, Meta, has been paying one of the most prominent Republican consulting firms to run a nationwide campaign to sow distrust about one of the company\u2019s top competitors, TikTok, according to a new report from The Washington Post on Wednesday. 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