Marsha Blackburn sends letter to Apple CEO seeking answers on news app's alleged bias
FIRST ON FOX — Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., has sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook seeking answers on the alleged political bias plaguing the company's popular news app Apple News.
"I write to express my concern with recent reporting that Apple News has systematically suppressed news articles from conservative publications while amplifying articles from liberal outlets," Blackburn wrote to Cook on Thursday, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Fox News Digital.
"The American public increasingly relies on services like Apple News to provide them with information, and they deserve to have access to perspectives across the political spectrum. To deny consumers that ability through algorithmic promotion or editorial bias is a disservice to those who use your product," she continued.
Blackburn, who is the chair of the Consumer Protection, Technology, and Data Privacy subcommittee which oversees the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), cited the study from conservative watchdog group Media Research Center that showed that Apple News featured zero pieces of content from right-leaning outlets throughout January while featuring 440 pieces of content from left-leaning outlets.
"Apple News is automatically installed on Apple devices and was purportedly ranked the most popular news application in the United States, Canada, and Australia in January. You have a responsibility to offer access to information without favor or bias toward one political party," Blackburn said.
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The Tennessee lawmaker went on to list questions she requested Cook to answer by her March 4 deadline, including how Apple News determines what content is featured on the app and whether it has conducted an internal review on political bias since the study was made public.
Apple did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Blackburn's letter comes days after FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson similarly expressed concern over the alleged bias and suggested Apple News could be in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices.
"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 last week.
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According to a 2018 New York Times report, the content featured on Apple News is chosen by a team of former journalists led by the app's editor-in-chief Lauren Kern, who previously served as the executive editor of New York Magazine and deputy editor of New York Times Magazine.
"We put so much care and thought into our curation," Kern told the Times in 2018. "It’s seen by a lot of people, and we take that responsibility really seriously."
Because of the tremendous reach of the Apple News app, the Times reported that Kern "quietly become one of the most powerful figures in English-language media." In 2020, Apple boasted that its app "draws over 100 million monthly active users in the US, UK, Australia and Canada."