The Federal Trade Commission warned Apple in a fiery letter on Wednesday that it may be violating consumer protection laws by stifling right-leaning publications on its popular news app.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson’s letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook came one day after The Post exclusively reported on a study that pointed to the Apple News app’s apparent bias against conservative media outlets. President Trump shared The Post’s report on his Truth Social account early Wednesday.
Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, analyzed a total of 620 stories given featured placement by Apple News’ editorial team in January — and found that none of them were published by outlets that are considered right-leaning.
“These reports raise serious questions about whether Apple News is acting in accordance with its terms of service and its representations to consumers,” Ferguson wrote in the Wednesday letter to Cook obtained by The Post.
In his Wednesday letter, Ferguson urged Cook to “conduct a comprehensive review of Apple’s terms of service and ensure that Apple News’ curation of articles is consistent with those terms and representations made to consumers and, if it is not, to take corrective action swiftly.”
The nation’s top trade cop pointed to Apple’s obligations under Section 5 of the FTC Act, which “prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices,” including “material misrepresentations and material omissions.”
“The First Amendment protects the speech of Big Tech firms,” Ferguson wrote. “But the First Amendment has never extended its protection to material misrepresentations made to consumers, nor does it immunize speakers from conduct that Congress has deemed unfair under the FTC Act, even if that conduct involves speech.”
In its analysis, MRC relied on classifications compiled by AllSides, which uses a multi-partisan panel of experts — with two members from the left, two from the center and two from the right – that are trained to spot media bias, as well as blind surveys of regular Americans, to establish bias ratings for outlets.
In February 2025, Ferguson launched an inquiry into tech censorship in an effort to “better understand how these firms may have violated the law by silencing and intimidating Americans for speaking their minds.”
“Any act or practice by Apple News to suppress or promote news articles based on the perceived ideological or political viewpoint of the article or publication, if inconsistent with Apple’s terms of service or the reasonable expectations of consumers, may violate the FTC Act,” Ferguson wrote on Wednesday.
“As an American citizen, I abhor and condemn any attempt to censor content for ideological reasons,” he added. “Such efforts, whether taken to appease overzealous activists, at the behest of foreign governments, or simply to advance the political views of Silicon Valley elites, stifle the free exchange of ideas, manipulate the public discourse and are inconsistent with American values.”
Apple did not immediately return The Post’s request for comment.
As The Post reported, MRC’s research showed that out the 620 stories that were featured on Apple News, a whopping 440 came from outlets that are rated as left-leaning, while the remaining 180 were published by centrist outlets.
Apple News, which is billed by the company as the top news app in the country, features a mix of handpicked content curated by in-house editors and some articles that are surfaced via algorithm.
In January, Apple News featured a total of 72 articles by Washington Post, 54 articles by the Associated Press, 50 by NBC News, 34 by The Guardian and 25 by NPR, according to MRC’s data. It published 54 articles by the Wall Street Journal, which is rated as centrist. The app featured no stories by The Post, Fox News or any other right-leaning outlet.
In response to MRC’s findings, an Apple spokesperson said the News app “provides access to news spanning a wide range of topics from more than 3,000 publications including the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Bloomberg, USA Today, Washington Examiner, New York Post, CBS News, local outlets, and more.”
“Apple News users can tailor the app to their interests by choosing to follow or block specific publications or topics,” the spokesperson added.
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