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Mark Zuckerberg paid lobby$7.6 million to aid in TikTok ban
A new disclosure reveals Instagram owner Meta spent more than ever on lobbing Congress and the White House as legislation to potentially ban its competitor, TikTok, was drawn up and passed.
Meta Platforms and its subsidiaries spent a record high $7.6 million on lobbying the federal government in the first quarter of the year as the U.S. Congress advanced legislation that could ban Instagram’s chief competitor, TikTok. Meta’s recent disclosure, covering lobbying activities from January through March, does not mention the TikTok ban issue directly, but it says that the company lobbied Congress and the White House on “Homeland Security” topics including “Discussions regarding cybersecurity, data security, encryption, platform integrity, election integrity, content policy, and terrorism,” as well as “Issues related to voter suppression/interference, political ads and misinformation policies.” The language in Meta’s disclosure echoes many of the talking points that have been used against TikTok and its Chinese owner ByteDance, including claims that China could use the app to collect Americans’ private data and influence U.S. politics. In March, the U.S. House of Representatives initially approved the bill forcing TikTok to be sold by ByteDance or be banned, and it passed it again this past weekend as part of a larger package that includes foreign aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan.
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