WASHINGTON—The omnibus spending bill unveiled by lawmakers Tuesday expands a ban on Chinese-owned TikTok on federal smartphones, but tough new measures targeting the tech industry didn’t make the cut.
The tech industry lobbied heavily to head off measures to establish online privacy protections, impose legal liability on social-media companies for their content and toughen antitrust rules. The industry also spent more than $100 million since the beginning of 2021 on ads opposing the legislation, much of that targeted in congressional districts.
“What you don’t see in this year’s omnibus are the more controversial measures that have raised red flags on issues like content moderation,” said Adam Kovacevich, CEO of Chamber of Progress, a group that represents major tech companies.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) led the Senate effort to ban TikTok from government smartphones.
Photo:
Brian Cahn/Zuma Press
The inclusion of the proposal to ban TikTok comes after the Senate, led by Sen.
Josh Hawley
(R., Mo.), passed the governmentwide ban measure separately last week. It is expected to be approved again by both chambers as part of the omnibus.
“TikTok will soon be BANNED on all government devices,” Sen. Hawley tweeted on Tuesday.
The Pentagon, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration have already imposed similar bans on TikTok being downloaded on government-issued smartphones and other devices, on grounds that data collected on users could be shared with the Chinese government.
The Biden administration is under fire for delays in negotiating an agreement with TikTok’s owner, Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., aimed at preventing data on Americans from being shared with China’s authoritarian government.
TikTok has repeatedly said that it safeguards the data of its users and wouldn’t share it with the Chinese government.
The sweeping spending bill released on Tuesday also included a measure to help consumers verify the identity of online sellers. Tech companies have supported the measure as a way to avoid piecemeal state-by-state legislation.
Significant measures with the best chances of passing heading into the home stretch included two more targeted bills: one to enhance children’s online protections and the other to limit the gatekeeper powers of
Apple Inc.
and
Alphabet Inc.’s
Google over smartphone apps.
But those measures also weren’t included in Tuesday’s omnibus bill. Industry officials said each of the proposals had unintended consequences that could hurt consumers and harm the internet economy.
Write to John D. McKinnon at [email protected]
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