U.S. Federal Trade Commission Launches Inquiry Into Tech ‘Censorship’ ⇥ ftc.gov
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission:
Censorship by technology platforms is not just un-American, it is potentially illegal. Tech firms can employ confusing or unpredictable internal procedures that cut users off, sometimes with no ability appeal the decision. Such actions taken by tech platforms may harm consumers, affect competition, may have resulted from a lack of competition, or may have been the product of anti-competitive conduct.
The FTC issued a Request for Information (RFI) requesting public comment on how consumers may have been harmed by technology platforms that limited their ability to share ideas or affiliations freely and openly.
This whole thing is written in neutral language, but almost certainly motivated by a longstanding belief that technology companies are biased against U.S. conservatives. This administration also wants to curtail the protections of Section 230 (PDF) of the Communications Decency Act; the questions in this RFI are directly tied to that goal.
There are legitimate complaints one can make about the power held by a handful of very large online platforms. But they are not infrastructure. Perhaps the best faith interpretation of the FTC’s concern is for people who make money off these platforms, and who have found themselves demonetized owing to their speech. Maybe that problem occurs on a larger scale than I can imagine, something the public comments will provide evidence for. But I doubt that. I bet it is a flood of people complaining some derogatory post of theirs received what they perceive to be an inadequate amount of engagement.
You can balance that out. I do not think it is productive to troll the FTC with fake comments. There is, however, evidence Meta has suppressed LGBTQ topics on Instagram and Threads. It would be worthwhile to document problems like these. At the very least, it shows there are lots of ways these platforms are inconsistent and buggy — and still powerful.