People Thought Kids On TikTok Were Spreading The 'Slap A Teacher' Challenge. The Truth Is Much More Sinister

The Lede

Meta paid a GOP firm to seed op-eds and letters with alleged stories about "harmful" TikTok trends to local news outlets across America. These trends were pushed by the firm Targeted Victory (who received $237M from Republican campaign spending in 2020) and the rumors were often picked up from fake Facebook challenges, like "Slap a Teacher TikTok challenge" — which never existed in the first place.

Key Details

• Meta went on the offensive after Frances Haugen leaked an internal report last year which showed that teens spent "2-3x more time" on TikTok over Instagram, another Meta product.
• Targeted Victory said they were "proud of the work we have done," but declined to answer questions regarding the campaign.
• Alongside maligning TikTok, the campaign aimed to distract everyone from the scrutiny on Meta's antitrust and privacy concerns.

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