Sen. Marsha Blackburn is demanding Apple CEO Tim Cook to provide answers about findings that the company has “systematically suppressed” conservative media outlets in its popular news app.
In a letter to the exec, the Tennessee Republican cited The Post’s exclusive reporting on an explosive study by the Media Research Center, which found that Apple News did not feature a single article written by a right-leaning news outlet among the app’s “top stories.”
“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,” Blackburn wrote in the missive published Friday. “To deny consumers that ability through algorithmic promotion or editorial bias is a disservice to those who use your product.”
Of 620 stories featured on Apple News in high-traffic morning time slots in January, 440 came from outlets that were rated as left-leaning, according to MRC’s study, while 180 came from centrist outlets. Right-leaning outlets, including The Post and Fox News, were shut out.
Blackburn gave Cook a March 4 deadline to respond to a number of questions about Apple News, including whether it has “ever excluded or deprioritized content from right-leaning outlets based on anti-conservative bias.”
The senator also demanded details on the procedure Apple News’s in-house editorial team uses to determine which articles to promote, as well as whether Apple has conducted or commissioned an audit of Apple News’s algorithms to assess whether they exhibit political bias.
“You have a responsibility to offer access to information without favor or bias toward one political party,” Blackburn wrote.
Apple did not immediately return a request for comment.
As The Post was first to report, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson sent a letter to Cook on Feb. 11 warning that Apple could be violating federal consumer protection laws if it is intentionally suppressing coverage by conservative outlets.
“The First Amendment protects the speech of Big Tech firms,” Ferguson wrote. “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.”
Apple News went 99 straight days without featuring a conservative news story before it promoted a Fox News article about the death of actor James Van Der Beek last Friday.
Elsewhere, a separate study conducted by AllSides, a nonpartisan group that classifies news outlets by their political leanings, found that Apple did not feature a single article by a right-leaning source in its “top stories” section during a two-week period last October.
Overall, just 2% of 166 articles reviewed for that study came from conservative outlets, while a whopping 50% came from left-leaning outlets and 23% from centrist outlets.
Apple News features a mix of handpicked news articles and some sections populated by algorithm. AllSides specifically focused on sections of the app that can’t be personalized by users – namely the “top stories” and “trending stories” sections.
“Apple News’ model inflames political polarization in America by ensconcing readers inside a one-sided bubble of information that can manipulate and blind them,” said Julie Mastrine, director of AllSides’ media bias rating system and one of the study’s authors.
