Facebook hired a large consulting firm to undermine its competitor TikTok, The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz and Drew Harwell reported in an eye-popping scoop on Wednesday. The secret campaign specifically targeted local reporters to help amplify questionable claims about the platform.

It seems many local outlets couldn’t resist the bait.

Online searches show hundreds of local news outlets repeated negative stories about TikTok, the social video platform that’s become one of the most downloaded apps on the planet, and harmful “trends” that supposedly originated there. (If you’re wondering why Facebook is nervous about TikTok in particular, you might have missed that their own internal research found teens are spending twice as much time TikTok than on Facebook-owned Instagram.) Local TV stations were the primary culprits, but local websites and newspapers also published pieces.

How did it work?

[The consulting firm] Targeted Victory worked to amplify negative TikTok coverage through a Google document titled “Bad TikTok Clips,” which was shared internally and included links to dubious local news stories citing TikTok as the origin of dangerous teen trends. Local operatives working with the firm were encouraged to promote these alleged TikTok trends in their own markets to put pressure on lawmakers to act.

One trend Targeted Victory sought to enhance through its work was the “devious licks” challenge, which showed students vandalizing school property. Through the “Bad TikTok Clips” document, the firm pushed stories about the “devious licks” challenge in local media across Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.

… In October, Targeted Victory worked to spread rumors of the “Slap a Teacher TikTok challenge” in local news, touting a local news report on the alleged challenge in Hawaii. In reality, no such challenge existed on TikTok.

Much of the local news coverage was framed, reasonably enough, around local school boards or law enforcement warning students of consequences for participating. The Omaha World-Herald, for example, ran a piece about Nebraska school groups announcing there is “zero tolerance” for the “slap a teacher” challenge on TikTok.

Last December, I spoke with @EmilyDreyfuss and @JosephineLukito about the tendency of TikTok “trends” leading to sternly worded press releases and breathless media coverage without verification for a @KCBSRadio story.https://t.co/X03wxl9ndb

— Marcus White (@marcuspwhite) March 30, 2022

Some of the local media picking up the “Slap a Teacher” challenge included a local TV station in Houston. On Facebook, the piece earned thousands of impressions.

KRON, in San Francisco, ran a segment about “why you need to watch out for the hashtag devious licks” and Oakland’s KTVU ran one saying, falsely, the trend’s “origins are based in the social media platform TikTok.” (Investigations by Gimlet and Insider have shown the trends initially spread on Facebook, not TikTok.)

The Santa Fe New Mexican was explicit about pointing fingers. “[T]here has been a sharp increase in national vandalism over the past month. You can blame it on the ‘Devious Lick,’ a new TikTok trend that administrators worry could be costing schools hundreds of dollars in repairs.”

1. Fake teen mayhem trends spread on Facebook.
2. Facebook pays PR firms to convince people the trends started on TikTok.
3. Profit!https://t.co/zaiUkI3v8H

— choire (@Choire) March 30, 2022

Other outlets took a more conversational approach when talking about the trends. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution encouraged teachers and parents to write in with stories of talking to children about “so-called TikTok challenges.”