The US FTC is expressing concern over allegations that Apple News suppresses right-wing content

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has raised concerns about Apple’s alleged blocking of content in the Apple News app.

In a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson has been named reports from the Media Research Center, a right-leaning think tank, which criticized Apple for excluding right-leaning sites from the top 20 posts in the Apple News feed.

“These reports raise questions about whether Apple News is acting in accordance with what it wants and how it is presented to consumers (…) I hate to oppose any attempt to investigate content on ideological grounds,” Ferguson’s letter read.

Ferguson, the Big Tech critic who Trump appointed to lead the competition regulator, said that the FTC does not have the power to require Apple to have an opinion or politics in the news, but said that if the company’s actions are “inconsistent” with the way they work or “the reasonable expectations of consumers,” they may be in violation of the FTC.

Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (another Trump appointee who opposes Big Tech), to be helped In Ferguson’s opinion, he writes, “Apple does not have the right to suppress conservative opinions in violation of the FTC.”

Ferguson has urged Apple to “thoroughly review” how it is being used and ensure that content stored on Apple News complies with its policies, and to “take swift action” if the controls are inconsistent.

The letter comes a day after President Donald Trump he shared reports the Media Research Center on its social media site, Truth Social. Trump has repeatedly accused Big Tech companies of stifling right-wing content, even as many of the big platforms have rolled back a number of measures to curb the misinformation and disinformation they provided years before he entered the White House.

Apple’s relationship with the Trump administration has fluctuated between warm and cold over the past year. Trump has criticized Big Tech, especially Apple, for making its equipment in China, but after Cook promised to destroy it more than $600 billion over the next four years Stateside and moved to rebuild the fences, the relationship between the Administration and the company it’s been good. Apple too he was kidnapped repair costs for cell phones manufactured abroad and shipped to the US

FTC last year too he started an investigation of “censorship and technical platforms,” ​​seeking opinions from people who felt blocked because of their political or institutional views. “Tech companies shouldn’t be harassing users,” Ferguson said at the time. “This inquiry will help the FTC better understand how these companies violated the law by restricting and intimidating Americans for expressing their opinions.”

Apple did not return a request for comment.