The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is opening up an official request for public comments on censorship by Big Tech companies. The agency is asking Americans to detail cases where they’ve faced consequences from companies for engaging in disfavored political speech, according to a draft document obtained by the Daily Caller.
Requests for public comments by the FTC are often a precursor to formal investigations or agency-level policy changes, indicating the agency, helmed by Commissioner Andrew Ferguson, does not intend to allow sweeping allegations of political censorship in prior years to go unchecked.
“In case there was any doubt, Big Tech is on notice. We do not intend to take our foot off the gas any time soon. The days of censorship and monopolies are over,” a senior FTC official told the Caller.
The document asks Americans if they have ever been suspended, banned, shadow banned, or otherwise received degraded services by technology platforms after sharing their opinions. It also suggests that users may have been punished by Big Tech companies for activities or groups they engaged with outside of those platforms.
“Comments from the public help us learn about new technologies and business practices, consider diverse points of view, and improve the quality of our policy-making, law enforcement and education efforts,” the FTC’s website says.
The FTC also wants to hear from employees of tech firms who have witnessed instances of censorship.
The FTC notes in the draft document that Big Tech companies may use “opaque or unpredictable” internal policies — separate from the company’s official terms of service — to censor Americans’ speech. Big Tech companies, the FTC explains, may also censor Americans without proper notice or an explanation of what they did wrong, and may not give them a meaningful opportunity to appeal content moderation decisions made by the platforms.
Such practices, the FTC warns, could constitute illegal anti-competitive behavior.
The FTC’s request for public comment asks users if Big Tech companies were motivated to censor them in response to pressure from local, state or federal governments.
States attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana sued the Biden administration in 2022, alleging that the federal government had illegally colluded with social media companies to censor Americans based on their political opinions, particularly in regard to criticism of the Biden administration and commentary on public health policies related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in January described Biden officials yelling and cursing at Meta employees to censor “true” content posted by users.
“I mean, Biden, when he was — he gave some statement at some point, I don’t know if it was a press conference or to some journalist, where he basically was like, ‘These guys are killing people,’” Zuckerberg said during an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan. “Then like all these different agencies and branches of government basically just like started investigating and coming after our company. It was brutal.”
The draft document also asks about pressure on Big Tech from foreign governments. A CBS “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday night showed German prosecutors explaining their efforts to crack down on “online hate speech.” Germany passed a law in 2017 that imposes massive fines of up to 50 million euros on Big Tech companies that don’t comply with removing content that is considered illegal in the European country.
Axios reported Feb. 10 that the FTC’s new hires, including Ferguson, are “skeptical of Big Tech,” quoting a commission source who said, “Big Tech and anyone else who seeks to engage in anticompetitive or illegal behavior have been put on notice.”
The article noted that the FTC is proceeding with lawsuits against Meta and Amazon and is actively investigating Microsoft.
Story by Amber Duke of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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