A technology-focused antitrust bill set to be considered by a US Senate committee Thursday will be expanded to include China’s two largest social media companies - a change that seeks to address criticism that the legislation would give an advantage to foreign digital firms.

The bill’s criteria for a covered platform will be expanded to include companies that have one billion worldwide monthly users or US$550bil in net annual sales, in addition to the existing US$550bil market capitalisation-threshold. These new criteria would capture ByteDance Ltd’s TikTok and Tencent Holdings Ltd’s WeChat.

A Tencent spokesperson declined to comment, while representatives for ByteDance didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

TikTok is ByteDance’s most popular global service. It has captivated teenagers from the US to South-East Asia, while Tencent’s WeChat is the go-to lifestyle, payments and social media platform for upwards of a billion people - mostly in China.

The legislation, which would prohibit so-called gatekeeper companies from giving an advantage to their own products on their platforms, already applies to Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Meta Platforms Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google.

The US technology giants have warned that the bill would place burdensome restrictions on American innovation, risk user privacy and security by opening some platform functions to competitors and damage products that are popular with consumers.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will consider the bill on Thursday. A similar version already passed the US House Judiciary Committee, but has yet to get a floor vote in the full House.

 - Bloomberg