President Joe Biden signed a bill Wednesday containing provisions that could ban TikTok in the United States, throwing cold water on the platform’s multi-million dollar lobbying effort that utilized former lawmakers in an attempt to influence policy on Capitol Hill.
TikTok and its China-based parent company ByteDance spent $3.1 million lobbying as Congress considered legislation that would force ByteDance to either sell the social media platform or face a ban in the U.S. between January and March, new disclosures show.
As part of its multi-million dollar lobbying strategy, TikTok hired two former senators and three former representatives to lobby on its behalf. The social media platform has repeatedly denied that it has ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), yet current and previous Bytedance employees have alleged that TikTok continues to share U.S. users’ data with ByteDance, The Wall Street Journal reported last year.
TikTok frequently promotes content for users that mirrors the CCP’s wider geopolitical agenda, according to a recent study by Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University.
Former Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and former Democratic Louisiana Sen. John Breaux were paid to lobby for TikTok through Crossroads Strategies, lobbying disclosures show. Crossroads Strategies was the tenth largest American lobbying outfit by revenue in 2023, according to OpenSecrets.
TikTok’s lobbying frenzy coincided with Congress’ consideration of the Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship, and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act, or ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act, which would have forced ByteDance to sell the platform or face a ban in the United States. Though that legislation only passed the House, similar sell-or-ban provisions were included in the foreign aid package signed into law by the president on Wednesday.
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TikTok and ByteDance spent over $8 million lobbying in 2023, according to the outlet. (snip)
Following the failure of its multi-million dollar lobbying campaign, TikTok released a statement calling the sell-or-ban provisions in the recently passed foreign aid package “unconstitutional.”
“This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court,” the statement reads. “We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail.”
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