Facebook funded anti-TikTok campaign through GOP firm

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

According to a new report from The Washington Post, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has been paying one of the most prominent Republican consulting firms to run a nationwide campaign to sow distrust about one of the company's top competitors.

Targeted Victory is said to have 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 get the message out that while Meta is the current punching bag, TikTok is the real threat as a foreign owned app that is #1 in sharing data that young teens are using.

News of Facebook's decision to hire the firm comes a few weeks after the company said it was losing users for the first time in its 18-year history. Facebook's active users dropped by almost half a million at the end of last year, according to a recent earnings report.

Several of Targeted Victory's op-eds contained links to negative news coverage about TikTok and were often bylined by influential community figures and politicians. The columns did not mention their connection to the firm, according to the Post.

Over the last few years, Congress has accused Facebook of holding an illegal monopoly in the social media industry. During a 2020 hearing with tech CEOs, lawmakers cited internal company documents suggesting that Mark Zuckerberg would destroy the company if it refused to sell to the social media.

When the dominant platform threatens its potential rivals, that should not be a normal business practice.

Targeted Victory is a big vendor for Republican campaigns. America First Action was the largest client of the firm and it earned over $230 million in 2020. TikTok has been criticized by Republicans. The app was banned by the former President Donald Trump after he signed an executive order.

President Joe Biden revoked the order last year.