FTC’s ‘Tech Censorship’ Investigation Is Censoring Comments About ‘Censorship’
"News just broke that House Republican Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, who has always disliked antitrust law, is proposing to use the budget process to roll back a key law in this area. The specific provision at issue is Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits “unfair methods of competition.” On Wednesday, he’s holding a committee hearing to roll back this authority through a strange legislative maneuver. I’m doing a bit of a quick legal read, but this is a rushed process, so I want to get it out now.
I believe this change could be significant. Recently, Section 5 was used to litigate against pharmacy benefit managers. It’s in the antitrust case against Amazon, another case against Corteva/Syngenta over exclusive dealing in seeds and chemicals, and it was the authority used to ban non-compete agreements. These cases, as well as every consent decree ever reached under Section 5, are now at risk.
To understand why, we have to start by looking at this unusual law. Section 5 is unique to the Federal Trade Commission, neither the Antitrust Division nor private litigants have jurisdiction to use it. It encompasses the Sherman Act, but it can also go beyond it. It’s intended to be broad-ranging but relatively weak, to allow an expert body - aka the FTC - to reach to new business practices."
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/house-gop-proposes-eliminating-key
Harris & Wilcox filed separate legal challenges to their firings, leading 2 Washington-based federal judges to block their removal under a 1935 #SCOTUS precedent in a case called Humphrey's Executor v. United States. In that ruling, the court rebuffed Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt's attempt to defy protections for #FTC members.
Chief Justice #JohnRoberts on April 9 granted the #Trump admin's request to temporarily halt the judicial orders that had kept Harris & Wilcox in office.
"TakeItDown Act has passed the #House 409-2 giving #Trump & the #FTC power to #censor the #internet.
The bill seems good at first glance. It requires online platforms to remove nonconsensual intimate imagery aka“revenge porn.”
However, it will also enable the FTC to demand #content be removed from websites.
In fact, Trump said he will use the bill ON HIS OWN BEHALF, presumably to remove criticism of him from the web."
https://masto.ai/@Nonilex/114418273096633363
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/28/congress-moving-forward-on-unconstitutional-take-it-down-act/
#TakeItDown Act has passed the #House 409-2 giving #Trump & the #FTC power to #censor the #internet.
The bill seems good at first glance. It requires online platforms to remove nonconsensual intimate imagery aka“revenge porn.”
However, it will also enable the FTC to demand #content be removed from websites.
In fact, Trump said he will use the bill ON HIS OWN BEHALF, presumably to remove criticism of him from the web.
#law #tech #regulations #FreeSpeech #Constitution
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/28/congress-moving-forward-on-unconstitutional-take-it-down-act/
The #JimJordan led #House #Judiciary Cmt has now released their reconciliation bill.
In addition to #immigration measures, it transfers ALL #FTC #antitrust actions to the US #AttorneyGeneral [currently #PamBondi], among other antitrust provisions.
Big Changes to COPPA: How the FTC’s New Rule Impacts Children’s Online Privacy https://thecyberexpress.com/ftc-announces-new-childrens-privacy-rule/ #Children’sOnlinePrivacyProtectionAct #children’sprivacyonline #FederalTradeCommission #TheCyberExpressNews #OnlineAdvertising #SuzanneBernstein #TheCyberExpress #AndrewFerguson #DataSharing #FTCChairman #CyberNews #COPPA #FTC
It should not be difficult to unsubscribe!
FTC sues Uber over difficulty of canceling subscriptions, “false” claims
The US Federal Trade Commission launched an “Inquiry on Tech Censorship” to “better understand how technology platforms deny or degrade users’ access to services based on the content of their speech or affiliations.” They are asking people who have been “banned, shadow banned, demonetized, or otherwise censored” to share their comments as part of a request for information until May 21.
FYI, FTC released final COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection) rule: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-04-22/pdf/2025-05904.pdf #edtech #COPPA #FTC @PogoWasRight @funnymonkey @mkeierleber
The FTC has sued Uber for "deceptive billing and cancellation practices." According to the agency, Uber made it easy for subscribers to join Uber One, but claims users "can be forced to navigate as many as 23 screens and take as many as 32 actions to cancel." Read more at @Engadget. #FTC #Uber #UberOne #Tech #Technology https://flip.it/ikdKXI
The Verge: FTC v. Meta live: the latest from the battle over Instagram and WhatsApp. “The FTC first brought the case in late 2020. While it was initially thrown out by the judge, he let an amended version move forward after the government beefed up details about why it thinks Meta is a monopoly. This phase of the trial will help the judge determine if Meta is liable for breaking antitrust […]
‘The key challenge for the #FTC will be convincing James #Boasberg, the presiding judge, that #Meta has dominated — in part via acquisitions — a “personal social-networking” market focused on friends-and-family connections, which does not include #TikTok or Google’s #YouTube.’
https://on.ft.com/3Eh1d3k
I frankly speaking didn't expect much from the FTC's case against Facebook. But reading through @pluralistic's piece, I think I should grab some popcorn and a cold beverage, sit back, and enjoy the show. #ftc #meta #monopoly
"Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case" -
https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/18/chatty-zucky/
Text scams grow to steal hundreds of millions of dollars https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2025/04/text-scams-grow-to-steal-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars #textscams #damages #Scams #News #FTC
https://www.alojapan.com/1249559/tokyo-hotel-operators-face-possible-warnings-over-suspected-price-cartel/ Tokyo hotel operators face possible warnings over suspected price cartel #ftc #hotels #news #Tokyo #TokyoNews #tourism #東京 #東京都 The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) is considering issuing warnings to 15 hotel operators in Tokyo on suspicion that they violated the antimonopoly act by holding monthly meetings to share internal information, which could potentially have led to the effective operation of a price cartel. The hotel industry has se…
"Mark Zuckerberg called the head of the Federal Trade Commission in late March with an offer: Meta would pay $450 million to settle a long-running antitrust case that was about to go to trial.
The offer was far from the $30 billion that the FTC had demanded. It was also a fraction of the value of Instagram and WhatsApp, the two apps Meta had bought and were at the heart of the government’s case.
On the call, Zuckerberg sounded confident that President Trump would back him up with the FTC, said people familiar with the matter. The billionaire Facebook co-founder had been developing closer ties to Trump—his company donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration and settled a $25 million lawsuit—and had been pressing the president in recent weeks to intervene in the monopoly lawsuit.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson found the offer not credible, and wasn’t ready to settle for anything less than $18 billion and a consent decree. As the trial approached, Meta upped its offer to close to $1 billion, the people said, and Zuckerberg led a frenzied lobbying effort to avoid the FTC trial.
It wasn’t enough. On Monday, the trial kicked off. The FTC called Zuckerberg—who privately expressed reluctance about taking the stand—to testify for four hours.
Zuckerberg was back on the witness stand Tuesday, where he faced questioning from an FTC lawyer over whether Facebook had paid $1 billion to buy Instagram to “neutralize” a competitor.
Asked if he would have preferred that Facebook’s own camera app would have grown faster, Zuckerberg responded, “I guess so, yeah. A billion dollars is very expensive.”
Former FTC Chair Lina Khan told the Journal that the company’s $450 million settlement offer was “delusional.”"
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/mark-zuckerberg-meta-antitrust-ftc-negotiations-a53b3382
#Caff: "A bola da vez é uma ação #antitruste movida pela #FTC (Comissão Federal de Comércio) dos EUA contra a #Meta, dona do #Facebook, #Instagram e #WhatsApp. O governo norte-americano acusa a empresa de #práticasanticompetitivas ao adquirir o Instagram (em 2012) e o WhatsApp (em 2014) para consolidar um #monopólio nas redes sociais.
A FTC pediu, dentre outras medidas, o desmembramento da Meta, separando assim Instagram e WhatsApp como empresas independentes."
https://www.uol.com.br/tilt/colunas/carlos-affonso-de-souza/2025/04/16/quem-concorre-com-a-meta-futuro-da-empresa-vai-a-julgamento-nos-eua.htm
