Meta had its biggest lobbying quarter ever

Meta had its biggest lobbying quarter ever in the first few months of 2024, spending a record $7.6 million engaging with the US government, according to its public lobbying filing released last week.

It’s a 64 percent jump from its spending in the fourth quarter of 2023 and represents more than a third of what Meta spent on lobbying the entirety of last year. The blockbuster quarter underscores just how much pending legislation is aimed at Meta and its peers — on everything from data privacy, kids online safety, and content moderation.

Still, Meta says the sharp uptick is largely due to compensation for its lobbying team. “The increase in Meta’s lobbying expenditures is due principally to operating expenses, including changes to the timing of the biannual compensation structure and an elevated stock price,” Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts said in a statement to The Verge.

Meta’s spending in the last quarter is an outlier among its big tech peers. It more than doubled the spend of Apple, Google, and Microsoft in the first quarter, which all spent closer to $2 or $3 million. Amazon spent the second most behind Meta at $4.4 million.

The most significant piece of tech legislation to pass recently was a bill that could ban TikTok unless its China-based parent company, ByteDance, divests it within a year — a law that Meta stands to directly benefit from if one of its closest competitors is forced to exit the US market. But Meta’s lobbying disclosure does not specifically list that bill as one it engaged on or the foreign aid package in which it passed. Meta’s Roberts confirmed the company did not lobby on the so-called Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.

According to its Q1 disclosure, Meta lobbied on kids safety bills including the Kids Online Safety Act, Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and Protecting Kids on Social Media Act (which would impose age verification for social media). It also engaged on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reauthorization and bills related to tech’s legal liability shield known as Section 230. Some other topics included international data flows, encryption, subsea cables, taxes, and political ads.

Meta set its previous lobbying record in the fourth quarter of 2021, when it spent $5.4 million. That period coincided with the revelations from former employee turned whistleblower Frances Haugen, who shared internal documents showing the company was aware of the harmful effects of its services on teens, among other findings.