Facebook parent paying GOP firm to campaign against TikTok - report
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Facebook parent Meta Platforms (FB
-0.1%) is paying a top Republican consulting firm to conduct a public campaign trashing rival social-media platform TikTok (BDNCE), The Washington Post reports.
Facebook has been banking on its short-video offering Reels to counter the fast-growing success of TikTok, one of the world's most downloaded apps.
Now Meta is paying Targeted Victory, launched as a GOP digital consulting firm, to try to turn the public against its Chinese-owned rival.
That campaign includes pushing dubious stories about allegedly dangerous TikTok trends (which actually originated as rumors on Facebook); placing op-eds and letters to the editor in regional news; and working to draw political reporters and politicians into a fight against TikTok, The Post says.
The firm needed to âget the message out that while Meta is the current punching bag, TikTok is the real threat especially as a foreign owned app that is No. 1 in sharing data that young teens are using,â one Targeted Victory director emailed in February, according to the report.
Targeted Victory has represented Meta for several years.
On Tuesday, Morgan Stanley stayed bullish on Meta's 12-month prospects but noted it was "not out of the Reel woods yet" with adoption and monetization rate still a question going forward.