Report from the New York Times
In Brief – The Federal Trade Commission announced that it sent a warning letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook expressing concerns that the operations of the Apple News may favor certain political viewpoints in a way that conflicts with Apple’s terms of service or reasonable consumer expectations and could expose Apple to consumer protection liability. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson cited research from the Media Research Center, a conservative media analysis and advocacy organization, that claims Apple News systematically promoted news articles from left-wing news outlets and suppressed news articles from more conservative publications. The organization says it studied more than 600 stories on Apple News in January and claims that over 400 were from outlets it labeled as left-leaning, while none were from outlets it labeled right-leaning. Chairman Ferguson urged Apple to conduct a comprehensive review of its story-selection process.
Context – US conservatives are scarred by the belief that the top digital platforms discriminated against conservatives for years. They believe that their rules and policies reflected a progressive monoculture reinforced by backers in the advertising, media, and entertainment industries, and an ecosystem of progressive think tanks, advocacy groups, academic researchers, government agencies, and media outlets in the US and Europe. The level of disruption and criticism across the online content moderation ecosystem after Elon Musk took over Twitter only reinforced these views. The current FTC Chairman is comfortable relying on the Media Research Center, but other media rating organizations are clearly deemed untrustworthy. One, NewsGuard has sued the Federal Trade Commission, alleging the agency unlawfully retaliated against it by conditioning approval of a major advertising industry merger on limits affecting use of its media credibility ratings. Another, Media Matters for America, obtained a preliminary injunction from a federal district court halting an FTC investigation the court said was likely retaliatory.