Employees with the firm, Targeted Victory, labored to undermine TikTok by a nationwide media and lobbying marketing campaign portraying the fast-growing app, owned by the Beijing-based firm ByteDance, as a hazard to American kids and society, in accordance to inside emails shared with The Washington Post.
Targeted Victory wants to “get 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,” a director for the firm wrote in a February electronic mail.
Campaign operatives have been additionally inspired to use TikTok’s prominence as a approach to deflect from Meta’s personal privateness and antitrust issues.
“Bonus point if we can fit this into a broader message that the current bills/proposals aren’t where [state attorneys general] or members of Congress should be focused,” a Targeted Victory staffer wrote.
The emails, which haven’t been beforehand reported, present the extent to which Meta and its companions will use opposition-research ways on the Chinese-owned, multibillion-dollar rival that has change into one of the vital downloaded apps on the planet, typically outranking even Meta’s in style Facebook and Instagram apps. In an inside report final 12 months leaked by the whistleblower Frances Haugen, Facebook researchers mentioned teenagers have been spending “2-3X more time” on TikTok than Instagram, and that Facebook’s recognition amongst younger individuals had plummeted.
Targeted Victory declined to reply to questions concerning the marketing campaign, saying solely that it has represented Meta for a number of years and is “proud of the work we have done.”
In one electronic mail, a Targeted Victory director requested for concepts on native political reporters who might function a “back channel” for anti-TikTok messages, saying the firm “would definitely want it to be hands off.”
In different emails, Targeted Victory urged companions to push tales to native media tying TikTok to harmful teen developments in an effort to present the app’s purported harms. “Any local examples of bad TikTok trends/stories in your markets?” a Targeted Victory staffer requested.
“Dream would be to get stories with headlines like ‘From dances to danger: how TikTok has become the most harmful social media space for kids,’” the staffer wrote.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone defended the marketing campaign by saying, “We believe all platforms, including TikTok, should face a level of scrutiny consistent with their growing success.”
A TikTok spokesperson mentioned the corporate is “deeply concerned” about “the stoking of local media reports on alleged trends that have not been found on the platform.”
Targeted Victory labored to amplify unfavourable TikTok protection by a Google doc titled “Bad TikTok Clips,” which was shared internally and included hyperlinks to doubtful native news tales citing TikTok because the origin of harmful teen developments. Local operatives working with the firm have been inspired to promote these alleged TikTok developments in their very own markets to put stress on lawmakers to act.
One pattern Targeted Victory sought to improve by its work was the “devious licks” challenge, which showed students vandalizing school property. Through the “Bad TikTok Clips” doc, the firm pushed tales concerning the “devious licks” problem in native media throughout Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.
That pattern led Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) to write a letter in September calling on TikTok executives to testify in entrance of a Senate subcommittee, saying the app had been “repeatedly misused and abused to promote behavior and actions that encourage harmful and destructive acts.” But in accordance to an investigation by Anna Foley on the podcast community Gimlet, rumors of the “devious licks” problem initially unfold on Facebook, not TikTok.
In October, Targeted Victory labored to unfold rumors of the “Slap a Teacher TikTok challenge” in native news, touting an area news report on the alleged problem in Hawaii. In actuality, no such problem existed on TikTok. Again, the rumor began on Facebook, in accordance to a sequence of Facebook posts first documented by Insider.
The firm labored to use each real issues and unfounded anxieties to solid doubt concerning the in style app. One electronic mail outlining latest unfavourable TikTok tales blended affordable questions, largely about TikTok’s company possession and practices, with extra exaggerated tales about younger customers recording themselves behaving badly — the sorts of social media panics which have lengthy bedeviled massive social networks, together with Facebook.
The company was working on the identical time to get “proactive coverage” about Facebook into native newspapers, radio segments and TV broadcasts, together with submitting letters and opinion items talking glowingly of Facebook’s function in, for example, supporting Black-owned companies. Those letters didn’t point out the Meta-funded firm’s involvement.
Targeted Victory has contracted with dozens of public relations companies throughout the United States to assist sway public opinion towards TikTok. In addition to planting native news tales, the firm has helped place op-eds concentrating on TikTok across the nation, particularly in key congressional districts.
On March 12, a letter to the editor that Targeted Victory officers helped orchestrate ran within the Denver Post. The letter, from a “concerned” “new parent,” claimed that TikTok was dangerous to kids’s psychological well being, raised issues over its information privateness practices and mentioned that “many people even suspect China is deliberately collecting behavioral data on our kids.” The letter additionally issued assist for Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser’s alternative to be a part of a coalition of state attorneys generals investigating TikTok’s affect on American youths, placing political stress on the corporate.
A really related letter to the editor, drafted by Targeted Victory, ran that very same day within the Des Moines Register. The piece linked to unfavourable tales about TikTok that Targeted Victory had beforehand sought to amplify. The letter was signed by Mary McAdams, chair of the Ankeny Area Democrats. Targeted Victory touted McAdams’ credentials in an electronic mail on March 7.
“[McAdams’s] name on this [letter to the editor] will carry a lot of weight with legislators and stakeholders,” a Targeted Victory director wrote. The electronic mail then inspired companions throughout different states to search for alternatives to add to the marketing campaign, “especially if your state AG suddenly joins on.”
The authors of the 2 letters didn’t reply to calls or emails requesting remark.
In an electronic mail despatched final week to native contractors, Targeted Victory requested every crew to “be prepared to share the op-ed they’re working on right now.” “Colorado and Iowa — Can you talk about the TikTok Op-eds you both got?” a Targeted Victory consultant requested.
The emails present how the firm has successfully promoted its anti-TikTok messaging with out revealing that it got here from a firm engaged on Meta’s behalf. None of the op-eds or letters to the editor have been revealed with any indication that the Meta-funded group had been concerned.
Launched as a Republican digital consulting firm by Zac Moffatt, a digital director for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential marketing campaign, Targeted Victory has routinely suggested Facebook officers over time, together with throughout a high-profile congressional listening to after the 2016 election.
The Arlington, Va.-based firm advertises on its web site that it brings “a right-of-center perspective to solve marketing challenges” and may deploy subject groups “anywhere in the country within 48 hours.”
The firm is among the greatest recipients of Republican marketing campaign spending, incomes greater than $237 million in 2020, in accordance to information compiled by OpenSecrets. Its greatest funds got here from nationwide GOP congressional committees and America First Action, a pro-Trump tremendous PAC.
In 2020, the firm mentioned it was increasing its “crisis practice and corporate affairs offerings” due to its shoppers’ rising want for “issues management and executive positioning,” including that it could focus its efforts towards “authentic storytelling” with a “hyper-local approach.”
Some of the emails concentrating on TikTok have been despatched in February, shortly after Meta introduced that Facebook had misplaced customers for the primary time in its 18-year historical past. Meta chief government Mark Zuckerberg advised buyers then that TikTok was a serious impediment, saying, “People have a lot of choices for how they want to spend their time, and apps like TikTok are growing very quickly.” The firm has unveiled a TikTok clone, a short-video function referred to as Reels, and promotes it closely in its Instagram app.
In a 2019 speech at Georgetown University, throughout which he invoked the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and championed Facebook’s function in selling free speech, Zuckerberg criticized TikTok for studies it had banned dialogue of subjects deemed subversive by the Chinese authorities, saying, “Is that the Internet that we want?” (The Washington Post and the Guardian had beforehand highlighted these content-moderation guidelines. TikTok has mentioned these tips have been outdated and that its U.S. enterprise now operates below totally different guidelines than its Chinese counterpart.)
But Zuckerberg has additionally pointed at TikTok to counter issues that Facebook holds a monopoly on social media. TikTok is the “fastest-growing app,” he mentioned in his opening remarks at a listening to of the House antitrust subcommittee in 2020.
The anti-TikTok marketing campaign follows in a protracted line of Facebook-funded advocacy teams working to increase its standing within the public eye.
In 2018, Facebook labored with Definers Public Affairs, one other Washington consulting firm based by Republican political veterans, to lash out at critics and different tech firms, together with Apple and Google, through the Cambridge Analytica scandal that sparked world outrage over Facebook’s privateness guidelines. (The firm mentioned it stopped working with Definers shortly after a New York Times report on the association.)
And in 2019, as the corporate confronted antitrust scrutiny over its gargantuan affect, Facebook drove the creation of a political advocacy group, American Edge, designed to persuade Washington lawmakers that Silicon Valley was crucial to the U.S. economic system — and that overt regulation might weaken the nation’s competitiveness in a expertise race towards China.
Meta outspends all however six of the nation’s greatest firms and business teams in federal lobbying, paying greater than $20 million final 12 months, in accordance to information compiled by OpenSecrets.