The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched an official request for public comments about censorship by major technology companies. The agency is asking Americans to detail cases where they face consequences from companies engaged in the condemned political speech, according to draft documents obtained by Daily Coller.
Requests for public comment by the FTC are often a precursor to a formal investigation or agency-level policy change, indicating agents. Commissioner Andrew Fergusonwe do not intend to allow allegations of political censorship sweep in the past few years to be unchecked.
“If there is any doubt, Big Tech has informed us. We don't intend to take our feet off the gas anytime soon. The era of censorship and monopoly is over,” a senior FTC official told the caller.
The document asks Americans if they received services that have been interrupted, banned, banned, banned or degraded by the technology platform after sharing their opinions. It also suggests that users may have been punished by large tech companies for activities and groups involved outside of those platforms.
“Comments from the public will help us learn about new technologies and business practices, consider diverse perspectives, and improve the quality of policy-making, law enforcement and education efforts,” the FTC website say.
The FTC also wants to be contacted by employees of high-tech companies who have witnessed cases of censorship.
The FTC has announced that large tech companies can use “opaque or unpredictable” internal policies (apart from the company's official terms of use) to censor American speeches in draft documents. It's pointing out. According to the FTC, large tech companies may censor Americans without proper notifications or explanations of the wrong things, and may not give them a meaningful opportunity to appeal to content moderation decisions made by the platform. Not there.
Such practices can constitute illegal anti-competitive behaviour when the FTC warns.
The FTC's request for public comment asks users if a large tech company is motivated to censor them in response to pressure from the local, state, or federal government.
Missouri and Louisiana Attorney Generals sued the Biden administration in 2022, with the federal government leaning on Americans based on political opinions, particularly on criticism of the Biden administration and commentary on public health policies. It is linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, which claimed to have illegally conspired with a social media company to censor.
In January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described Biden officials screaming and cursing Meta employees to censor “true” content posted by users. (Related: Zuckerberg refused to name them, but found out by people who supported them on Facebook on Biden Censor Americans)
“I mean, Biden, when he was – he made some statements at some point, is it a press conference or something, or something to the journalist, he basically said, “These people were killing people.” I don't know if it was something like that,” he said in an interview with Zuckerberg podcaster Joe Rogan. “Then it was like, like all these different institutions and government branches, basically they looked into and started coming after our company. It was cruel.”
The draft document also asks about pressure from foreign governments on major technologies. A CBS “60 Minutes” interview aired on Sunday night showed German prosecutors explaining their efforts to crack down on “online hate speech.” Germany Passed the law In 2017, it poses a massive fine of up to 50 million euros on large tech companies that do not comply with the removal of content deemed illegal in European countries. (Related: Hours after saying that freedom of speech led to the Nazis, CBS aired rides with German police along with German police)
axios It has been reported On February 10, new recruits at FTC, including Ferguson, said they were “skeptical of big technology.”
This article noted that the FTC is proceeding with lawsuits against Meta and Amazon and is actively investigating Microsoft.
