Considering the Federal Trade Commission’s Double Standard on Media Bias

It’s an interesting time to be an organization that conducts media bias research in the United States. Depending on the results of your research, you may find the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) using it to justify an inquiry directed at another company; or you may find yourself the target of an FTC investigation.

The first scenario is reflected in events earlier this month, when FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook. In his letter, Ferguson noted that recent research from self-described conservative media watchdog organization the Media Research Center indicated that Apple News, the company’s news aggregation app, “systematically promoted news articles from left-wing news outlets and suppressed news articles from more conservative publications.”

According to Ferguson, such patterns may put Apple in violation of the FTC Act — if such patterns are inconsistent with Apple’s terms and conditions; are contrary to consumers’ expectations that failure to disclose such ideological favoritism is a “material omission”; or if such practices cause “substantial injury that is neither reasonably avoidable nor outweighed by the countervailing benefits to consumers or competition.” The bottom line, Ferguson contends, is that this pattern in Apple News’ curation may constitute unfair or deceptive practices, and therefore could warrant an FTC investigation.