The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sent a letter to Apple regarding allegations of political bias in its Apple News curation.
A study released this month by the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog group, has found that Apple News featured a significant number of articles from left-leaning outlets in its top stories during January 2026, while including zero from right-leaning sources.
The group examined 620 stories that appeared in high-traffic morning slots on Apple News from January 1 to January 31st. 440 of those stories came from outlets rated as left-leaning (such as The Washington Post, Associated Press, NBC News, The Guardian, The New York Times, NPR, and others), while the remaining 180 came from centrist outlets (including The Wall Street Journal and Reuters). No stories from right-leaning publications, such as The New York Post or Washington Examiner were included.
In a letter addressed to CEO Tim Cook on Wednesday, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson cautioned that Apple News may violate Section 5 of the FTC Act, which bans unfair or deceptive acts or practices in commerce.
Joseph A. Wulfsohn for Fox News:
“The First Amendment protects the speech of Big Tech firms. 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,” Ferguson told Cook.
“Accordingly, Big Tech companies that suppress or promote news articles in their news aggregators or feeds based on the perceived ideological or political viewpoint of the article or publication may violate the FTC Act if that suppression or promotion (1) is inconsistent with the terms and conditions of service; (2) is contrary to consumers’ reasonable expectations such that failure to disclose the ideological favoritism is a material omission; or (3) when those practices cause substantial injury that is neither reasonably avoidable nor outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or competition.”
“The FTC is not the speech police; we 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. But Congress has mandated that we protect consumers from material misrepresentations and omissions, including when the product or service offered to consumers is a speech-related product,” Ferguson wrote.
Ferguson closed his letter by urging Cook to “conduct a comprehensive review” of Apple’s terms of service to make sure its curation practices aren’t in violation and to “take corrective action swiftly” if they are.
MacDailyNews Take: Lauren Kern is the Editor-in-Chief of Apple News at Apple, the role that directly leads the curation team. Kern has held this position since joining Apple in 2017 as the first person in the role. Apple emphasizes human editors over pure algorithms for key curation decisions. Kern reports up through Apple’s services organization, ultimately to Eddy Cue (Senior Vice President of Services), who oversees Apple News.
Kern was previously Executive Editor at New York magazine and ,m prior to that, the Deputy Editor of The New York Times Magazine (from 2010 to 2014). Which ought to tell you all you need to know about why Apple News, out of the box, leans left.
On the day Lauren Kern was named first Editor-in-Chief of Apple News, we wrote, “Interesting choice that could open Apple News up for some additional criticism.”
Our crystal ball’s record remains sacrosanct.
Who determines what’s “real” news and what’s “fake?” Cook seems to want “technology companies’” idea of what’s “real” to be “ingrained in the schools” and “ingrained in the public.” Technology companies, again, who donated 99% of their political dollars to one party in the last U.S. Presidential election.
If this is really what Cook desires then… Wow. Just wow. – MacDailyNews, February 11, 2017
So, if TIME Canada puts the next-gen iPhone on their cover a day before Apple’s unveiling or some website criticizes Apple’s software quality, where do those stories go in Apple’s News app? Do they even show up at all?
Or how about positive news articles involving politicians with whom Tim Cook & Co. do not agree/actively oppose? – MacDailyNews, June 15, 2015
As always, readers of “news” need to consider the sources and interpret what they are are being told accordingly. The more disparate sources you can find, the better. And we don’t mean different newspaper, network, website brands that are all owned by the same conglomerate. Determining the actual ownership of your “news” sources is an investment that requires a bit of time, but it is very enlightening. – MacDailyNews, June 17, 2015
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