TikTok’s D.C. Influence Campaign

Under scrutiny from Congress, the social media company is leveraging close ties to American power brokers.

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U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman participates as TikTok content creators gather outside the Capitol to voice their opposition to a potential ban on the app on March 22, 2023. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Popular social media app TikTok is facing more scrutiny from Congress and the White House over concerns it shares Americans’ data with Chinese authorities. But parent company ByteDance is fighting back in its own way by employing former members of Congress and other lobbyists to influence current politicians.

ByteDance and TikTok hired 43 lobbyists in 2022, including former members of Congress from both parties, according to research group OpenSecrets. (For comparison, ByteDance made over $80 billion in revenue in 2022; Meta made $116.6 billion the same year and employed 75 lobbyists.) One lobbying firm in particular, Crossroads Strategies, employs former Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and retired Democratic Sen. John Breaux, both of whom were paid $440,000 for their work as lobbyists for ByteDance. ByteDance also paid former Democratic congressman Bart Gordon and former Republican congressman Jeff Denham $160,000 each. Both now work for law firm K&L Gates. 

But ByteDance’s attempts to influence politicians extend beyond formally recognized lobbying.

In March TikTok reportedly hired SKDK, a consulting firm with connections to President Joe Biden, to provide communications support. (SKDK had turned down work with TikTok in the past, and in 2020 told employees to delete TikTok from their devices.) A founding partner of SKDK, Anita Dunn, worked on Biden’s campaign in 2020 and is now a senior adviser at the White House. Top communications figures for the White House, Pentagon, and Department of the Interior also came to the Biden administration from SKDK. (SKDK did not respond to a request for comment.)

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  1. BenP

    Oh and good on Rand Paul, I was worried he'd completely cast off his libertarian roots after jumping aboard the MAGA train. Looks like there's still a bit in there.

    But wait, maybe he isn't doing this because he genuinely opposes banning TikTok... maybe it's because he's doing the bidding of the evil pro-TikTok donor class! Hmmm.

    I honestly thought that "follow the money" style arguments where we impugn the motives of senators by digging through their donor files every time they oppose legislation we support was limited to places like Daily Kos and HuffPost. Is it so hard to believe that the libertarian sincerely doesn't want the government to ban the scary thing?

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  2. BenP

    The arguments against TikTok are getting more embarrassing by the day. The president of the United States, along with a bipartisan group of federal legislators, wants to ban a huge corporation from doing any business in our country, and they should be "ashamed" for lobbying in their own defense? And any Americans who they hire should be seen as foreign agents? That is pathetic. May as well tell us that criminal defense attorneys should be viewed as accessories to crime while we're at it. If the problem is the practice of lobbying in and of itself, then target that, all the way across the board. If the problem is people and companies we don't like getting into lobbying, grow some principles. Or maybe listen to a couple episodes of Advisory Opinions.

    Our economy is massively intertwined with China's. It is true that their system of government is antithetical to some of our most cherished founding principles. It is true that their government does reprehensible things. It is true that we have a national security interest in keeping our economic, diplomatic, and military power strong relative to theirs. BUT - we have been doing business with them for a long, long time. I don't begrudge Klon Kitchen and others their national security arguments, despite disagreeing. But we're getting into "yellow peril" territory with some of the rhetoric quoted in this article.

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  3. Jennifer Stanowski

    Is it just me or has there been a vibe shift this past week where Republicans are absolutely destroying any chance they have with young voters. By the time the presidential election comes around the damage will be epic. And it’s not liberal indoctrination folks. It’s their lived experience thus far. Give them more credit. I just had to get that out, it gets worse daily. Unbelievable.

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      Ben Connelly

      I’m in my late twenties and almost none of my friends have TikTok and most of them have zero love for it. Also, many young people don’t vote and young folks don’t have the attention span to care about what happens to TikTok after a year or two.

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  4. Vance Schuemann

    Everyone in DC already knows all of this. Turn it on its head. Then explain it.

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  5. Garrodw96

    Reading about these lobbying efforts and the use of former gov officials is just making me feel gross. I can't help but see it as an effort to pit us all against one another as we were beginning to get serious about this stuff.

    Saw an article where TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was trying to suggest that the Congressional hearing had a xenophobic bent to it. Same article shared on Twitter had people responding with flimsy takes like "Of course it was xenophobic! This guy is from Singapore and all they could do was ask him about China!"

    Now I don't doubt that a nonzero number of legislators lack the deftness (or even the motivation) to keep their questions from sounding bigoted, but the remarks from Shou Zi Chew strike me as a cynical manipulation of public opinion. If they cast aspersions on the effort to ban TikTok that invoke the American culture war, then who knows if this bipartisan moment will hold up.

    TikTok is doing some great messaging for itself, but it's muddying the waters. Pieces like this are gonna be needed all the more to clear up the manipulation at play.

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    Chris L

    Some in the "influencer" circuit in town are clearly being paid by TikTok to promote TikTok, but since it is on the platform for the platform, it doesn't have to be advertised as a paid endorsement, making it all the more insidious.

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    1. BenP

      I was watching ESPN last night, and I saw an advertisement where some professional atheletes were helping promote a TV show that was going to air on... ESPN! I suspect ESPN paid them to do it, too.
      This infuriates me.

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    EricRemcon@gmail

    Thanks for starting my morning on a depressing note, Alec.

    My negative take has nothing to do with TikTok, China, or foreign agent registration. The GOP is at least a 50% cult with a “leader” who isn’t fit to run a Wendys™ (or even work the drive-thru window) and your article about the lobbyists demonstrates the dysfunction in our government even more depressingly. If the GOP zombies ever do drag themselves out of the orange swamp, they will just be returning to the ‘normal’ swamp of DC. This is why the federal government needs to be as small as possible so that the corruption (which will always be present) cannot concentrate.

    Everyone likes to emphasize the ‘serving’ nature of public office. That is how it was intended; go to Washington to advocate for your state (part time) for a few terms then return to your community and resume your real career. Now it is just the opposite: get a law degree, practice for a few years, get elected, serve 6 or 8 years (whatever the minimum is to get a full pension) then switch over to the lobby circuit to cash in. In the modern era, it’s even worse because there is no need for a law degree if you take the 15-minute fame route.

    I’m not trying to paint all of congress with the same brush, I’m sure there are plenty there with good intentions. But I would be curious to see an in-depth study of the career paths of every member of congress from first job through the SS check collecting retirement stage. What was the public/private work balance of those that came in office in the last 100 years. I think it would show an amazing concentration of lobbyists and other versions of influence peddling instead of the typical hometown ‘car dealership’ route of yester-year. And I’m totally ignoring the ridiculous 40-year “servers”.

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      Mike Shigley

      And this is a reason that no member of Congress should ever be eligible for a federal pension just for serving in Congress, whatever the length of time.

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    Pat @ Tavi Hall

    This article makes me curious as to how hard it is to be registered as foreign agents and what consequences doing so entails. Also can an agency register and cover their employees and contractors.

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