(ORDO NEWS) — TikTok is gaining an increasing audience, and Meta, on the contrary, is losing it. Unable to do anything about it, the American company decided to try to turn users against the Chinese application.
It seems that the American social network, instead of attracting users, decided to denigrate its competitor in an attempt to regain its dominant position in the market.
The Washington Post alleges, citing internal Meta* correspondence, that the company hired a consulting firm linked to the Republican Party to spread negative stories in an attempt to influence public opinion about TikTok.
As part of the alleged reputational attack, a firm called Targeted Victory ran articles and editorials in news outlets, many of which highlighted the allegedly disturbing trends seen on TikTok. It turns out that many of these trends actually started on Facebook.
Pathetic attempt
The newly released emails have attracted the attention of the Meta’s top critics and even former employees. A spokesperson for TikTok told Gizmodo that the company is “deeply concerned that fueling negativity through local media reporting of alleged disturbing trends could do real harm.”
Then on his Twitter blog, Brian Boland, a former Facebook vice president who worked for the company from 2009-2020, said the revelations about his former employer’s tactics were “not surprising.”
According to him, Meta solves problems with the help of PR tactics, and does not focus on studying and correcting its mistakes, which can cause real harm to people‘s mental health and social well-being.
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