Meta had its biggest lobbying quarter ever

Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge

Meta had its biggest lobbying 4th ever successful the archetypal fewer months of 2024, spending a grounds $7.6 cardinal engaging with the US government, according to its public lobbying filing released past week.

It’s a 64 percent leap from its spending successful the 4th fourth of 2023 and represents much than a 3rd of what Meta spent connected lobbying the entirety of past year. The blockbuster 4th underscores conscionable however overmuch pending authorities is aimed astatine Meta and its peers — connected everything from data privacy, kids online safety, and content moderation.

Still, Meta says the crisp uptick is mostly owed to compensation for its lobbying team. “The summation successful Meta’s lobbying expenditures is owed principally to operating expenses, including changes to the timing of the biannual compensation operation and an elevated banal price,” Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts said successful a connection to The Verge.

Meta’s spending successful the past 4th is an outlier among its large tech peers. It much than doubled the walk of Apple, Google, and Microsoft successful the archetypal quarter, which each spent person to $2 oregon $3 million. Amazon spent the 2nd astir down Meta astatine $4.4 million.

The astir important portion of tech authorities to walk precocious was a measure that could ban TikTok unless its China-based genitor company, ByteDance, divests it wrong a twelvemonth — a instrumentality that Meta stands to straight payment from if 1 of its closest competitors is forced to exit the US market. But Meta’s lobbying disclosure does not specifically database that measure arsenic 1 it engaged connected oregon the overseas assistance bundle successful which it passed. Meta’s Roberts confirmed the institution did not lobby connected the alleged Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.

According to its Q1 disclosure, Meta lobbied connected kids information bills including the Kids Online Safety Act, Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and Protecting Kids connected Social Media Act (which would impose property verification for societal media). It besides engaged connected the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reauthorization and bills related to tech’s ineligible liability shield known arsenic Section 230. Some different topics included planetary information flows, encryption, subsea cables, taxes, and governmental ads.

Meta acceptable its erstwhile lobbying grounds successful the 4th fourth of 2021, erstwhile it spent $5.4 million. That play coincided with the revelations from erstwhile worker turned whistleblower Frances Haugen, who shared interior documents showing the institution was alert of the harmful effects of its services connected teens, among different findings.