TikTok crackdown bill in US faces changes after ByteDance’s US$100 million lobbying spending spree, senator says

Democratic Senator Mark Warner said aggressive lobbying ‘slowed a bit of our momentum’ on a bill targeting TikTok introduced in March

Critics of the bill say it greatly expands government power by allowing the Commerce Department to block transactions with foreign apps it considers a risk

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Progress on a bill giving the US government more authority to restrict apps like TikTok has slowed amid lobbying efforts from Beijing-based ByteDance, Senator Mark Warner said. Photo: AP

Published: 11:33am, 11 Jul 2023

US lawmakers are considering changes to address concerns about a bill that would give the Biden administration new powers to ban Chinese-owned TikTok, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee who has cosponsored the legislation said on Monday.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner told Reuters that aggressive lobbying by the ByteDance-owned short video app TikTok against the Restrict Act “slowed a bit of our momentum” after it was introduced in March.

Warner said lawmakers have “a proposal on a series of amendments to make it explicitly clear” and address criticisms, including that individual Americans could be impacted or that the bill represents a broad expansion of government power.

“We can take care of those concerns in a fair way,” Warner said.

The legislation endorsed by the White House would grant the Commerce Department new authority to review, block, and address a range of transactions involving foreign information and communications technology that pose national security risks.

“I will grant TikTok this – they spent US$100 million in lobbying and slowed a bit of our momentum,” Warner said, adding that initially it seemed it would be almost “too easy” to get the bill approved.