TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance had its biggest lobbying quarter ever, spending more than $2.1 million in the second quarter to lobby the U.S. government, according to its disclosure filed Wednesday in a federal database.
That represents a 130% increase from ByteDance’s spending the previous quarter and marks the first time it’s topped $2 million in a single quarter since it first registered lobbying disclosures in 2019. The company spent about $4.7 million on lobbying in all of 2021, according to the disclosures.
The company lobbied on a variety of issues. One piece of legislation it discussed was the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, the key antitrust bill that would prohibit dominant tech platforms from favoring their own offerings over those of rivals that rely on their services. It also lobbied on the two versions of a large funding bill aimed at boosting American competitiveness against China, a handful of online privacy bills, a defense spending bill and a bill to ban TikTok from Department of Homeland Security devices.
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