FTC Official: Big Tech Could Use New Report To Justify Censorship

A U.S. Federal Trade Commission official is concerned that a new 129-page report penned by her agency could be easily construed by Big Tech companies to justify the partisan censorship that has plagued their sites for years.

In its “A Look Behind the Scenes: Examining the Data Practices of Social Media and Video Streaming Services” report published last week, the FTC suggests Amazon, Facebook, Google’s YouTube, Twitter, Snap, ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company), Discord, Reddit, and WhatsApp are guilty of participating in a “vast surveillance” operation.

The comprehensive findings, first commissioned at the end of the Trump administration in December 2020 but released under the Biden administration’s purview, determined this invasion of privacy has not only “harmed our competitive landscape” but also “affected the way we communicate and our well-being, especially the well-being of children and teens” by relying on algorithms that boost “harmful content.”

In her Sept. 19 response to the findings, Commissioner Melissa Holyoak agreed that the findings represent “a major step forward” in the fight to protect Americans’ privacy from the Big Tech companies eager to invade it. Yet, she expressed “grave” concern that the report “is unclear exactly how its analysis or recommendations will affect free speech.”

The report explicitly claims it does “not address or endorse any attempt to censor or moderate content based on political views,” as Big Tech and the Biden administration were caught doing during media-fueled panic over Covid-19.

Holyoak noted, however, that the FTC’s repeated calls for “more stringent testing and monitoring standards” without defining what that means or what content it applies to could put Americans’ First Amendment rights at further risk of infringement.

“What these companies deem ‘harmful,’ ‘bias[ed],’ or ‘erro[neous],’ and their approach to such content, have significant consequences,” Holyoak wrote.

Holyoak also noted that FTC Chair Lina Kahn is aware of how Big Tech companies are “‘susceptible to coordination with — or cooptation — by the government,’ and that dominant social media companies ‘allow[] a small number of executives to determine whose views are amplified or silenced.’” Yet the report Kahn signed off on “fails to account for potential effects on free speech.”

The FTC claims the report was designed to “inform decisions made by the public, policymakers, and companies.” Holyoak, however, said the FTC “is unambiguously directing the private sector to comply with its recommendations.”

“It is well known that what federal officials say can change how social media companies treat speech online, and that these companies react to guidance from federal officials,” Holyoak wrote. “That is particularly likely here, given the Commission’s ongoing legal interactions with many of the largest social media companies.”

She also warned that the social media censors euphemistically referred to as “trust and safety professionals” could easily use use the FTC’s report to rationalize shutting down dissident speech.

The FTC’s disdain for certain viewpoints posted to Big Tech social media sites is no secret. In July 2023, the agency, cheered on by corporate media, Democrats, and X employees, weaponized itself against Elon Musk’s X for “seceding from the censorship complex.”

“I am concerned that such suggestions and recommendations may further limit free speech online, even where the intent is not directly to suppress free speech,” Holyoak concluded.