TikTok under fire: Meta’s scheme to get rid of serious competition
Short videos. Scrolling. Hilarious and not-so-hilarious challenges. This just scratches the surface of what many know as TikTok, a popular social network that reached the 1 billion users mark last year. The platform is used by teens and young adults around the world.
However, not everyone is happy about the growth of this upstart in the social media block. Meta (formerly Facebook), in particular, is concerned about the revenue and user share that it’s stealing. Teens spend two to three times more time on TikTok than Instagram, which is owned by Meta. And recently, their plot to take down the “clock app” has been unveiled.
The Washington Post reported in a recent article that “Facebook parent company Meta is paying one of the biggest Republican consulting firms in the country to orchestrate a nationwide campaign seeking to turn the public against TikTok.” The firm, Targeted Victory, has directed their employees to “undermine TikTok through a nationwide media and lobbying campaign portraying the fast-growing app, owned by the Beijing-based company ByteDance, as a danger to American children and society….”
Meta has taken heat from anti-social media activists for knowingly targeting young people on Instagram. Now it’s trying to use this campaign to deflect its troubles onto TikTok.
The campaign also involves highlighting dangerous trends and other such issues, trying to pressure congresspersons to take legislative action. One such example was the “devious licks” challenge, which PBS says “encouraged students to record themselves stealing or vandalizing school property, then posting the video online.” Opposition actually led for calls to have TikTok executives testify in a Senate subcommittee. But investigations revealed that the trend initially started, ironically, on Facebook. This was similar to the “Slap a Teacher” challenge, however this one actually never existed on TikTok. It was also from Facebook.
Letters to the editor have been sent to the Denver Post, the Des Moines Register and others. Op-eds have been submitted. Because of the nature of the campaign, the firm has been extremely effective in promoting anti-TikTok sentiment without actually putting its name behind it. However, that could all change very rapidly as the truth begins to come out about Meta’s lobbying practices.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory/
https://www.businessofapps.com/data/tik-tok-statistics/
By Charles Metz