According to a recent survey conducted by the washington postthe company of Mark Zuckerberg would have paid an American agency referred to as Targeted Victory, to tarnish TikTok’s image in the press. The goal for Facebook was clearly to relay negative stories about its Chinese rival to American newspapers.
With Targeted Victory, Facebook wanted to damage the image of TikTok in the United States
the washington post managed to access internal emails between Facebook and this famous agency. You can read things like “The dream would be to see published articles with titles like: ‘From dances to dangers: how TikTok became the most harmful social network for children’.”. A message sent by an employee of Targeted Victory, the agency commissioned by Mark Zuckerberg’s company, to the project manager on the Facebook side.
Sony responds to Xbox Game Pass with a new Playstation Plus offer
The American daily reveals that Facebook has indeed paid this press agency, close to the Republicans, to to bring out content capable of harming the image of TikTok. A questionable strategy, to try to destabilize a social network on the rise, which probably scares Facebook. The objective was to harm the image of the social network owned by ByteDance on American soil. Targeted Victory employees were asked to spot the “bad videos posted on TikTok”.
A way to divert attention?
Then, the news agency was responsible for contacting the local press to try to convince journalists to write about the excesses of TikTok. According to the survey of washington postTargeted Victory notably sought to obtain articles on the affair of the “devious licks”. This is a series of videos of students degrading equipment in college and high school toilets. Perfect to show the bad influence that the Chinese social network can have on young people.
Targeted Victory also sought to highlight the slap a teacher challengea challenge that consists in “slap” a teacher during a lesson. Challenges broadcast on TikTok, it’s true, but not only. They were also visible on Facebook or Instagram. The agency commissioned by Facebook succeeded in passing two op-eds signed by a parent and a local Democratic Party official. Published in local newspapers in Colorado and Iowa, they indicate some concern about the effects of the platform on the mental health of young people.
other articles on concerns about the collection of personal data youths by the Chinese regime on TikTok were posted thanks to Targeted Victory. In short, while the Meta group was the target of an antitrust investigation, the objective of this strategy was clearly to divert attention.