The Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) campaign on Big Tech reached a new chapter on Thursday when FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, accusing the company of suppressing conservative content. In it, Ferguson ironically insists that "the FTC is not the speech police" after lecturing Apple for its speech.
Ferguson accuses Apple News, the No. 1 news app in the United States, of "systematically promot[ing] news articles from left-wing news outlets and suppressed news articles from more conservative publications." To substantiate his accusation against Apple, Ferguson cites "multiple studies [that] have found that in recent months Apple News has chosen not to feature a single article from an American conservative-leaning news source." These studies are those conducted by the Media Research Center (MRC), a conservative media watchdog.
