Yahoo Finance Live's Akiko Fujita reports that Meta paid a GOP firm to campaign to turn the public away from its rival TikTok.

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING] AKIKO FUJITA: Well, TikTok is the target of an orchestrated media and lobbying campaign sponsored by Facebook. That is according to an explosive report out from the Washington Post this morning. The social media giant reportedly hired a consulting firm to push op-ed columns, lobby politicians, and portray TikTok as a danger to American children and society. And Brian, a great story here over in the Washington Post, but I have to say that Facebook wasn't exactly subtle about this, because we've talked about this before, the increasing mentions from Facebook slash Meta about TikTok, the competition there. And according to this story, the company paid Targeted Victory, which is one of the biggest Republican consulting firms, to essentially dig-- you know, essentially frame TikTok as a big threat, particularly because it is a foreign-owned app, although TikTok has continued to say that the data is held in the US. This comes at a time when Facebook is facing a lot of pressure, especially over antitrust concerns. BRIAN CHEUNG: Yeah, and kudos to Taylor Lorenz and Drew Harwell over at the Post for uncovering this. But I guess it's not to necessarily say it's a surprise. We know that a lot of the big tech companies here stateside would like to see TikTok gone. And to be fair, that's not to say that the substantive concerns about data privacy and mental health well-being with regards to TikTok is a valid point. I mean, it definitely is a valid point. And we know some of the national security issues that have been brought up with the Chinese company ByteDance, which is the parent of TikTok. Now, for right now, though, we do have to acknowledge the extraordinary nature of what's being reported here, which, as you point out, Akiko, is the fact that Meta is actively using its resources to put out, in some cases, for example, op-eds in local newspapers, and trying to get local news reporters to effectively get the message out there that look at all the good that Meta is doing, look at all the bad that TikTok is doing, so much so-- and this is the part of the story that I love-- there was apparently a Google document titled, quote, "Bad TikTok Clips," which I feel like I can make my own folder for all the bad TikToks that I've seen on my feed. But again, I think this is just the beginning here. We know that Facebook has a massive armory of cash that it can use to do things like this, which a lot of people know they have big lobbying arms, but I guess maybe not to the shadowy degree that this story is reporting. AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, and there's a number of emails that this Washington Post report points to that suggest just how Facebook wanted to frame this debate. Specifically, one of those emails saying, while Meta is a current punching bag, TikTok is the real threat, especially as a foreign-owned app. That was kind of the message they said this lobbying firm should be pushing for. And I'm thinking back all the way back to 2019, Brian, when Mark Zuckerberg gave that speech over at Georgetown. I mean, that was seen as a big policy speech for Facebook. And that was really one of the first times publicly he came out and said, look, you can regulate us, but if you do, these other apps, yes, TikTok from China, is going to gain market share here in the US. And of course, since then, we have seen explosive growth in the app here in the US. BRIAN CHEUNG: And just a quick point I want to add before we kind of finish up here, but the firm that apparently was hired by Meta didn't respond to questions in this report, but they said that they've represented Meta for several years and, quote, "is proud of the work that we have done." So by the way, this is not a rumor that Meta is working with this company. We know that this is actually happening. So just worth mentioning there. AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, certainly. And we'll be listening, of course, in how this continues to be shaped, because the irony here is that Meta may face increasing pressure around antitrust concerns now that this report has revealed so much more.