The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission has issued a warning letter to Apple, telling the tech giant to review its curation of news articles to see if its Apple News is freezing out media outlets on the right, and to take “corrective action” if that is the case.
The letter from FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson “is the latest instance of Trump administration efforts to try to pressure private entities over their content choices,” notes Deadline.
And the Sellers Research Group (that’s me) thinks it’s another example of the Trump administration sticking its noise into free speech.
Ferguson quotes data from The Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group focused on tracking media bias, analyzed a total of 620 stories that were featured by Apple News in high-traffic morning time slots January 1-31. The Apple News feed is curated by a team of in-house editors rather than an algorithm.
Of the 620 stories, 440 came from outlets that are rated as left-leaning, while the remaining 180 were published by centrist outlets, claims The Media Research Center. Meanwhile, outlets which are considered right-leaning — including The Post — were shut out entirely, the report claims.
In his letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Ferguson raises the prospect that Apple News’ choice of stories may violate the FTC Act, arguing that the suppression or promotion of stories “based on the perceived ideological or political viewpoint of the article or publication” may be “inconsistent” with Apple’s terms of service or the “reasonable expectations of consumers.”
According to Deadline, he wrote: The FTC is not the speech police; we do not have the authority to require Apple or any other firm to take affirmative positions on any political issue, nor to curate news offerings consistent with one ideology or another. But Congress mandated that we protect consumers from material misrepresentations or omissions, including when the product or service offered to consumers is a speech-related product.
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