Of course, if there is a social network that has earned a bad reputation, it is Facebook. Scandals related to privacy or the use of customer data have been numerous in recent years. And also with their opponents, because now we know that they maneuvered to sink their great enemy, TikTok.
A stream of anti-TikTok opinion
The Chinese social network has quickly become the market trend among the young public. If before it was Instagram that had picked up the baton from this younger audience, now Mark Zuckerberg’s group is seeing how it loses the game against TikTok, with a fresher and more digestible proposal, not only for the youngest, but also for many users who see Facebook as a too static and outdated format for virtual social relations. What we have learned now is quite serious, and it is that according to Washington Post, Meta would be paying for smear campaigns against TikTok.
It seems that behind these campaigns against the Chinese social network is one of the republican consultants largest in the United States. The objective would be to gradually create a current of opinion against TikTok that allows Meta to recover part of that young audience that it has been losing in recent years. This campaign against the social network would be based on the publication of opinion pieces and letters to the editor in the most relevant regional media. And something curious, alleged trending stories that have actually been created from Facebook are used against TikTok.
Let’s say that practices that have been common in the political environment for years, such as disinformation campaigns directed against certain groups, they are now being used to smear the Chinese social network. Something that undoubtedly shows that Facebook has taken seriously to recover the young public that is the future, and for this it has proposed to use all the weapons at its disposal, even the most questionable.
smear from below
According to these sources the company Targeted Victory would be behind this virtual attrition campaign against TikTok. From The Washington Post they have been able to access emails that show that all the smear maneuvers that this company is carrying out want to convey that the Chinese are a danger to children, minors and the whole of American society. The strategy is to show the public that, although Facebook is not an example of many things, worse is what is to come with TikTok, which is the real threat to society.
There are reports that the popularity of Facebook among young people has sunk and that they spend up to two and three times more time on TikTok than on the social network created by Mark Zuckerberg. But the goal of this campaign, camouflaged as Targeted Victory’s own actions, is to turn public opinion from below against it. So much so that, in intercepted emails members of this company survey local media looking for ideas they can use to damage TikTok’s reputation and amplify the feeling that its use is harmful to young people.
It seems that Meta does not willingly accept that it has been largely surpassed by TikTok and, now, they spend a lot of money on manipulating the opinion, not only of young people, but also of other segments of the older population. And all while wielding the ghost of a possible control of the data of the social network by the Chinese government. How about we remember Cambridge Analytica?
