{"id":1710550,"date":"2022-10-25T14:18:58","date_gmt":"2022-10-25T18:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1710550"},"modified":"2022-10-25T14:19:01","modified_gmt":"2022-10-25T18:19:01","slug":"heres-how-the-biden-admin-lets-tiktoks-chinese-parent-company-skirt-foreign-lobbying-disclosures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/heres-how-the-biden-admin-lets-tiktoks-chinese-parent-company-skirt-foreign-lobbying-disclosures\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s How the Biden Admin Lets TikTok\u2019s Chinese Parent Company Skirt Foreign Lobbying Disclosures"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fheres-how-the-biden-admin-lets-tiktoks-chinese-parent-company-skirt-foreign-lobbying-disclosures%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1710550&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>As evidence mounts that TikTok\u2019s Chinese parent company spies on American citizens, the Biden administration has let the social media giant avoid disclosing its extensive lobbying and public relations activities to the American public.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/emilybaker-white\/2022\/10\/20\/tiktok-bytedance-surveillance-american-user-data\/?sh=1ff026996c2d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a report<\/a> released last week, executives at ByteDance\u2019s Internal Audit and Risk Control department developed a plan to track the location data for at least two American citizens. The report adds to longstanding concerns that the Chinese government could use TikTok to scoop up data on Americans.<\/p>\n<p>But ByteDance has so far dodged extensive federal regulations and is in talks with the Biden administration on how to continue operating TikTok in the United States. In addition to a cavalry of in-house lobbyists, ByteDance has three Washington firms on retainer to lobby Congress and the Federal Communications Commission. ByteDance has spent more than $4,360,000 so far this year on lobbying.<\/p>\n<p>Details of that lobbying campaign are largely kept under wraps because the U.S. government does not require ByteDance to disclose its lobbying activities under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law that requires lobbyists for foreign governments or political parties to disclose their lobbying contracts and outreach to American policymakers and media organizations. The disclosures can provide a roadmap of how foreign organizations try to influence policy in Washington.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, ByteDance\u2019s lobbyists disclose their influence activities under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, a far less transparent regulation that only requires lobbyists to disclose their revenues and issues on which they lobby. Lobbyists for foreign companies often exploit the loophole by registering under the Lobbying Disclosure Act instead of the Foreign Agents Registration Act by claiming they are not working for foreign governments.<\/p>\n<p>Watchdog groups and policymakers have expressed concern with the loophole.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s time TikTok lobbyists register as foreign agents,&#8221; Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/marshablackburn\/status\/1543685482936242177?s=46&#038;t=SUqjasxKJ_IiqXwO7ekJsw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> after a report earlier this year that ByteDance executives in Beijing have accessed the data of TikTok users in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve been quite concerned about the loophole for a long time,&#8221; Mandy Smithberger, a director at the Project on Government Oversight, <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/china-exploits-lobbying-loophole-to-dodge-disclosure\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told<\/a> the <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em> last year. &#8220;FARA certainly has a very Western interpretation of the lines between corporations and governments. It doesn&#8217;t reflect how in some countries, those two are pretty synonymous.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Like most Chinese companies, ByteDance\u2019s corporate structure is intertwined with the Chinese government. It is also required by law to share data with the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As evidence mounts that TikTok\u2019s Chinese parent company spies on American citizens, the Biden administration has let the social media giant avoid disclosing its extensive lobbying and public relations activities to the American public.<br \/>\nThe post Here\u2019s How the Biden Admin Lets TikTok\u2019s Chinese Parent Company Skirt Foreign Lobbying Disclosures appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":123545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1710550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1710550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1710550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1710550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1710550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}