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FTC warns Apple's Tim Cook over alleged political bias in its Apple News app

By
Megan Cerullo
Reporter, MoneyWatch
Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.
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Megan Cerullo

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The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sent a  to Apple CEO Tim Cook about Apple News, pointing to reports claiming the news aggregator "systematically boosts left-wing sources and suppresses right-wing sources."

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson alerted the tech giant's chief executive that, if the allegations are true, the company could be violating the FTC Act, a law that prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices. The Apple News app aggregates news stories from a range of digital publications to curate content tailored to consumers' preferences.  

Ferguson, who cited research from the Media Research Center, a right-leaning watchdog group, said that tech companies that feature news articles based on a publication's "perceived ideological or political viewpoint" may violate the law. The FTC chief asked Apple to review its article curation and "take corrective action swiftly" if it is excluding conservative news sources.

Policies that exclude some news sources "stifle the free exchange of ideas, manipulate the public discourse and are inconsistent with American values," Ferguson wrote.

Apple did not immediately respond to CBS News' request for comment.

The FTC cited a report from the Media Research Center that analyzed more than 600 stories featured by Apple News in users' feeds from Jan. 1 to Jan. 31. The analysis found that more than 400 of the stories Apple News featured came from outlets perceived to be left-leaning, and that news sources perceived to be right-leaning did not appear in users' digital news feeds.

The Media Research Center says it relies on , a company that rates the perceived political bias of online publications, for determining a news source's perspective.

Ferguson also argued that Apple may be violating its own terms and conditions of service if it doesn't disclose to consumers practices that could "cause substantial injury that is neither reasonably avoidable nor outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or competition."

Nevertheless, the FTC chief noted that the agency "is not the speech police."

"[W]e do not have 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," Ferguson added.

But, he noted, the agency has a mandate from Congress to ensure that consumers are protected from "material misrepresentations and omissions, including when the product or service offered to consumers is a speech-related product."

Edited by Aimee Picchi

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