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Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

washingtonpost.com

171–180 of 324 posts

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#171
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has FB met any kids? "Mom say TikTok will corrupt my morals" is recruiting campaign, not a destructive attack.

Not in many culturally conservative households. These parents exert a lot more control over what their children are exposed to / allowed to engage with.

They _try_ to exert a lot more control over what their children are exposed to. I'm not sure they're always successful.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#172
post #137

What is a "Republican strategy firm?" A consulting firm with the Republican party as one of their clients? What's the point of making "Republican" so prominent in the article? Is it just to use the negative connotation most WP readers have about the Republican party to malign Facebook a little more? It seems like we're just spectating an op-ed war, and discussing this article as if there's any meaning to it other tha…

Yes, political division sells papers. I looked for the "opinion" label, which is used to justify this type of manipulation but didn't see one. It's an article manipulating you talking about how Facebook uses a company that the GOP uses (and probably Dems too) to manipulate you. I suspect it wouldn't mention that some of these articles this company uses to manipulate you are probably published in The Washington Post,…

I don't know the intent of the writers or editors, but I would think a political strategy firm is reasonably aligned to one party or the other and its alignment is totally valid context. I didn't get the impression it was overplayed here. I think what does happen sometimes is that when there is a negative connotation, as there is here, and the association is with the Democratic party, that context is downplayed or omitted entirely.

Aside from that, the choice of a Republican focused group makes sense since the strategy was to assert threats to traditional values and appeals to nationalism / anti-China sentiment.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#174

Facebook is using the same firm to malign Roblox with the same strategy.

Like most adults, most of what I know about Roblox comes secondhand from the media. Recently I saw[1] a pretty damning video about Roblox's lack of moderation and exploitation of its users.

My basic perception at this point is that TikTok, Facebook, and Roblox all deserve each other. Hopefully they waste their money attacking each other until they mutually self-destruct.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTMF6xEiAaY

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#175

Serious question, for those with more experience than me “in the game” running big successful companies: are dirty tactics like this (and worse) par for the course and generally expected, and it’s sort of understood that the outsiders/general public are shielded from it? Or is it actually shocking? It often seems like there’s two “worlds” operating at the same time. In one, there’s outrage and indignation at this sor…

This is definitely not the norm for many large companies and really shows the emotional context of the leadership. If they feel attacked, or threatened, often they will resort to the same behavior in reverse.

Similarly, this seems to affect consumer companies a bit more often than B2B companies, but that isn't to say that they are immune.

Certainly not surprising to hear this about Facebook given it's history.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#176
post #137

What is a "Republican strategy firm?" A consulting firm with the Republican party as one of their clients? What's the point of making "Republican" so prominent in the article? Is it just to use the negative connotation most WP readers have about the Republican party to malign Facebook a little more? It seems like we're just spectating an op-ed war, and discussing this article as if there's any meaning to it other tha…

> What's the point of making "Republican" so prominent in the article? Is it just to use the negative connotation most WP readers have about the Republican party to malign Facebook a little more?

A person self identifies with a party that has questionable (/s) practices in a democracy and they’re being maligned. Jokes are funny because they have truth.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#178

My 9 year old watches TikTok, and I've got mixed feelings. My kid is really into videos of other kids telling jokes, making slime, doing puzzles, etc. Frankly I think that's better than the vapid dreck on Disney--and infinitely better than social media, which would just stoke the tweener social drama. (We allow TikTok but not any form of social media.) Obviously there is less age-appropriate content on there too. But…

I'm interested to see that you don't count TikTok as social media.

Does your 9yo have friends on TikTok? I sometimes see the younger crowd often follow each other on TikTok and make posts primarily intended for their friends. This seems a very different usage pattern from mostly watching strangers on the for you page. Maybe 9 is too young for that mode though.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#179
post #137

What is a "Republican strategy firm?" A consulting firm with the Republican party as one of their clients? What's the point of making "Republican" so prominent in the article? Is it just to use the negative connotation most WP readers have about the Republican party to malign Facebook a little more? It seems like we're just spectating an op-ed war, and discussing this article as if there's any meaning to it other tha…

> as if there's any meaning to it other than to malign Facebook.

I don't think this is malignment, per se: Facebook makes a big show of being a progressive company (internally) with a nominally neutral political outlook. Hiring a Republican strategy firm undermines that image: it demonstrates that, push come to shove, Facebook's commitment to these things is primarily a facade intended to deflect criticism.

Re: Facebook paid Republican strategy firm to malign TikTok

#180

Serious question, for those with more experience than me “in the game” running big successful companies: are dirty tactics like this (and worse) par for the course and generally expected, and it’s sort of understood that the outsiders/general public are shielded from it? Or is it actually shocking? It often seems like there’s two “worlds” operating at the same time. In one, there’s outrage and indignation at this sor…

> are dirty tactics like this (and worse) par for the course The details make all the difference. Apple goes on stage and posts misleading graphs about their competition multiple times per year. The latest event showed the M1 Ultra matching an RTX 3090 in performance, yet that’s nowhere close to true in anyone’s testing and the graph was deliberately misleading in dishonest ways (3090 curve was truncated before it re…

When Apple lies about performance on a stage... It's clearly from Apple and people treat it accordingly. Nobody relied on that information or even believed it.

When Facebook pays a marketing agency to get anti tiktok headlines into local news, the reader has no idea who was involved and is left with negative impressions of tiktok that stay with them long after they forgot the details of the story (if they even read that far).

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