FTC tells Tim Cook to look into reports Apple News is censoring conservatives

FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson has called on Tim Cook to review possible political bias in Apple News' practices after allegations that the platform is censoring conservative news outlets.

"Recently, there have been reports that Apple News has systematically promoted news articles from left-wing news outlets and suppressed news articles from more conservative publications," Ferguson wrote in the letter posted to X on Wednesday.

Apple declined to comment on the letter.

The focus on perceived conservative censorship has been a regular theme of the Trump administration, with the White House launching a media bias section of its website in December.

The webpage includes an 'offender hall of shame' that names a weekly story that the administration finds misleading.

A portal was announced the same week, "calling on everyday Americans to support the truth and hold the Fake News accountable" by submitting biased articles.

Apple can legally promote any content it wants to on its news platform, which Ferguson acknowledged.

"We do not have the 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," he wrote.

Ferguson's letter cited a study from the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, that looked at featured stories on Apple News during morning time slots in January.

According to the study, outlets considered right-leaning by AllSides media bias ratings were not featured in a 620-story sample.

President Donald Trump shared a New York Post write-up of the study on his Truth Social account early Wednesday.

Apple has so far navigated Trump's second term fairly well, weathering the early tariff blitz and crackdown on China manufacturing, which included the president's desire to have iPhones made in the U.S.

Cook hand-delivered a gold-and-glass trophy to Trump in the Oval Office in August as the company pledged another $100 billion to bolster U.S. manufacturing.

According to Section 5 of the FTC Act, the news aggregator could be violating terms if its suppression or promotion "is contrary to consumers' reasonable expectations such that failure to disclose the ideological favoritism is a material omission."

Ferguson told Cook to undergo a "comprehensive review" and take corrective action if the Apple News curation is not consistent with the company's terms of service.