Communists Grease Palms: China’s TikTok Spends Big Bucks Lobbying Washington

TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance has reportedly massively ramped up its lobbying efforts amid scrutiny of its app’s harm to American teenagers and the company’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

ByteDance is pouring record sums of money into federal lobbying while efforts to crack down on TikTok continue to mount, according to an analysis of new lobbying disclosures by OpenSecrets.

The Chinese company spent more in federal lobbying in the first three quarters of 2023 than it did any other year to date, spending roughly $7.4 million each quarter, after only spending $4.9 million in 2022, the disclosures showed.

ByteDance, which first reported payments to federal lobbyists in 2019, has spent more than $19.9 million on lobbying to date, and now ranks thirteenth among all federal lobbying clients spending during the third quarter of 2023.

The Chinese company has even spent more in federal lobbying in the third quarter of 2023 than Silicon Valley giants like Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc., Apple, and X, formerly known as Twitter.

The company, owned by a hostile foreign country, reportedly spent more than $3.7 million on federal lobbying in the last three months alone, surpassing what it spent in the entire years of 2019 and 2020 combined.

 

ByteDance lobbyists have reportedly begun focusing on internet technology and machine-learning-enabled content platforms that use artificial intelligence (AI) to customize feeds based on users’ preferences.

The Chinese company’s lobbyists have also recently started advocating around issues regarding “privacy, data security, data localization, protecting children, intermediary liability and platform/content moderation, including federal privacy and protection legislation.”

Additionally, ByteDance lobbying has recently involved “trade issues affecting internet companies including legislation related to cross-border data transfers and legal frameworks for foreign-based applications and services.”

ByteDance lobbyists have even pushed against the bipartisan bill, Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, which seeks to ban kids under the age of 13 from using social media, and require that platforms verify the age of their users.

U.S. officials are currently mulling over a nationwide ban on TikTok, which is widely considered a national security threat, a danger to teens and kids, as well as a risk to privacy due to the app and its parent company’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

Meanwhile, at least 34 U.S. states have proposed or enacted TikTok bans on government-issued devices, according to a report by Associated Press.

In May, Montana became the first U.S. state to ban TikTok when Governor Greg Gianforte (R) singed legislation that he said would protect the residents of his state from “the Chinese Communist Party.”

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X/Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.