Meta paid a consulting firm to sow distrust about TikTok, according to the sources reported by The Washington Post.

The sources alleged the firm, called Targeted Victory, placed “op-eds and letters to the editor in major regional news outlets, promoting dubious stories about alleged TikTok trends that actually originated on Facebook”.

Targeted Victory worked 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,” according to an internal email cited by the newspaper.

“We believe all platforms, including TikTok, should face a level of scrutiny consistent with their growing success,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told The Washington Post.

The news comes as TikTok continues to be subjected to regulatory scrutiny within the UK.


In November 2021, Ofcom introduced new measures to crackdown on terrorism, child sexual abuse, and racism related content on video sharing platforms (VSPs), claiming that one third of users have seen “hateful” content on VSPs such as TikTok, Snapchat, OnlyFans, Vimeo, and Twitch.

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