(Twitter / @TaylorLorenz)

According to a Washington Post story published earlier today, Facebook's parent company Meta hired Targeted Victory, a conservative consulting firm, to run a PR campaign against TikTok. The goals of the campaign were to convince lawmakers and the American public that TikTok poses a threat to the safety of children and is a bad influence on society.

The story, written by WaPo reporters Taylor Lorenz and Drew Hartwell, details the strategy Targeted Victory used. The firm worked through local news networks to plant stories and skew coverage against TikTok. Often, this involved writing fake op-eds or feeding reporters information about TikTok trends and rumors about the platform. Reportedly, a fake story about the “Slap a Teacher Challenge,” which never really existed on TikTok beyond reactions to news coverage, trended as a result of Targeted Victory’s efforts.

These tactics are remarkably similar to what political consulting firms do for candidates, stoking rumors and attempting to manipulate media outlets into covering certain stories. Conservative outfits, in particular, (see the Sinclair Broadcast Group) have been known to work through local news networks, which are purportedly "easier to game" than national outlets.

Targeted Victory, which is run by the former digital director of Mitt Romney presidential campaign, rakes in hundreds of million dollars a year in revenue. According to public records, Meta has employed the firm’s services for years. Targeted Victory describes itself as having a “right-of-center perspective” and has in the past worked with Republican campaigns and hand-in-hand with firms like the controversial Cambridge Analytica. Users online were quick to point out the links between Meta, the universe of conservative consulting firms and other companies.

TikTok is the most-downloaded social media app right now, and it's taking up more and more mindshare and memeshare. As some commentators pointed out, it makes sense that Meta would go after TikTok, a major competitor which poses a threat to its business and platforms like Instagram.

The story also led some online to speculate what it must be like to work at Targeted Victory. The primary sources used by the Washington Post were leaked internal emails, and many wondered about why and how the information came out.

In a Twitter thread earlier, Targeted Victory CEO Zac Moffatt pushed back against the article, stressing his "right-of-center" firm's bipartisanship while pointing out that Lorenz and Hartwell are Democrats, implicitly accusing the Washington Post of partisanship. Moffatt also claims that the Post published false information, citing an inference made by the reporters that he disagrees with and an instance of "hyperbolic" language, but does not deny that his firm has done work for Meta and against TikTok.

As shown in the high revenues billed by Targeted Victory, which is only one among many consulting, lobbying and influence-peddling operations active in the political and tech worlds, shaping public opinion is big business.


Share Pin


Comments 3 total

pinterest