Tim Cook Faces FTC Warning Over Apple News Curation

[HouseLannister]

FTC, just tell Cook the news sources in Apple News are "stupid," "never smile," and need to be "quiet pigg[ies]".

 

[TFrank2]

"The FTC is not the speech police; we do not have the authority to require Apple or any other firm to take affirmative positions on any political issue, nor to curate news offerings consistent with one ideology or another.“

Cool. Go pound sand then.

Tim reviewing the letter…

 

[burgman]

"The FTC is not the speech police; we do not have the authority to require Apple or any other firm to take affirmative positions on any political issue, nor to curate news offerings consistent with one ideology or another.“

Cool. Go pound sand then.

Some of the letter's media examples violate what they accuse Apple of as a profit motive Imagine that...

 

[mondaiguy]

Wow. Apple news is news curation, not news reporting. This smacks of over zealousness.

When you block a channel that Apple curates as a top story, the headline still shows and it just says "You blocked this channel" in place of the image. Not even Google pulls that crap.

 

[wanha]

there is no such thing as "left leaning" in the US mainstream media.

There's the right (Fox, WSJ, Newsmax, Breitbart, etc) and then there's the center (NYT, WAPO, CNN, etc), but there's no such thing as the left.

In practice, the US has only one party (pro business) with a fascist wing and a status quo wing.

 

[DocMultimedia]

YOU'RE ALL WRONG AND LOSERS. ONLY I REALLY KNOW THE TRUTH. GREENLAND IS MY PROPERTY AND NORWAY WILL GET ATTACKED IF THEY DON'T GIVE ME THE HONESTLY EARNED NOBLE PRIZE BY STOPPING TWELVE WARS ON MY FIRST DAY IN OFFICE. AND ONLY LEFT LOSERS SHOULD BE SENT TO MY ROUND UP CAMPS. I REDUCED DRUG PRICES BY SEVEN HUNDRED PERCENT. EVEN MORE!! SINGERS AREN'T ALLOWED TO SPEAK UNLESS THEY SAY WHAT I TOLD THEM TO. NO DEMOCRATICALLY CONTROLLED STATES CAN VOTE NEXT YEAR. SCIENCE IS FAKE. BRAIN. ME. SMART. BANANA. POOP PANTS.

Yeah, he's right. 🙄

 

[Radin.Y]

This admin is pathetic I can’t wait until they gone and forgotten

Sadly, they are leaving their mark. The stink won’t go away for at least another generation.

 

[burgman]

Apple News is clearly heavily left leaning, like 90% of mainstream media, but you can just choose not to use it. It is disappointing that it is so lame, but that's the way it goes. I am not a fan of the government pressure. I would prefer the market to just continue ignoring it. Terrible ratings is the best way to deal with biased content.

Astounding on a tech forum that such lack of critical thinking skills is considered a win. Sharing bumpersticker slogans as "facts" to hide personal bias left or right. Sad, incredulous, hilariously shallow.

 

[Radin.Y]

Maybe, just maybe, it’s curated to show actual news, rather than the garbage Breitbart or OAN post. It’s like complaining to the chef for not having trash on the menu.

 

[Onelifenofear]

News has always been left leaning and wrong

If you think news is left leaning there is a very good reason for that. because PROPER journalists care about the truth, people and doing the right thing.

Left-Wing Press: Prioritises social justice, equality, and government intervention. These outlets often focus on workers' rights, environmental protection, and the role of public services in reducing inequality. Businesses are held accountable.

Right-Wing Press: Emphasises individual liberty, free markets, and traditional values. Coverage typically champions lower taxes, deregulation, and a strong national defense, while prioritizing personal responsibility over state support and championing businesses over the public or individual.

The percentage of US journalists identifying as Republican has dropped from 18% in 2002 to 7.1% in 2013, reaching a low of 3.4% by 2022.

Most Left wing journos have degrees in Journalism and have proper understanding of sources/source protection and verifiable facts - Hardly any Right wing Journos do. They have degrees in business and other specialisms like politics.

Ironically. The current governments base are the ones being screwed over by the lack everything the Left wing press care about. Tariffs, Healthcare etc.

Real journalism is a hard thankless task and what the right wing media do is present things without facts and use buzz words and slogans. The people on certain Right wing shows are not remotely journalist they are TV evangelists.

 

[jarman92]

I’m surprised they’re not getting sanctioned for not posting stories about how “awesome” Trump.

Still 3 years left, I’m sure it’ll happen.

 

[trusso]

“Misrepresentations or omissions” is why so-called “right wing” rags do not have primacy of place in the first place.

How hard is this to fathom, folks?

Oh, yeah, it’s because this isn’t actually about fairness. It’s about pushing the regime’s fascist agenda.

 

[Eriamjh1138@DAN]

Apple should just say it’s “fair and balanced” like Fox.

 

[rictus007]

An the GOP is the party of free speech absolutists

 

[jarman92]

What’s with the constant whining?
Do they ever get bored playing the same old victim card over and over again?

Nope. Permanent victimhood is not only the foundation of the Republican Party, it’s their only consistent principle.

 

[coolfactor]

sooo is the FTC the only people that use Apple News?

I feel like I have not been using it even though it’s part of my Apple one bundle. I just go to individual sites. And I feel like a lot of the country just uses social media to share specific articles. Like Reddit and Twitter. So this feels like the FTC is complaining about the paperboys only throwing one paper in front of everyone’s houses instead of multiple.

Apple News is an aggregator, pulling together stories from several news outlets. It's a convenient way to get a healthy cross-section. This "warning" is about them not including enough of the entertainment-oriented rags.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

AppleTV is pretty solid. I may not like all the shows but you can’t argue with the production quality. I do wish I could tell it to stop advertising specific shows to me on the front page of the device AppleTV. Like I don’t want horror shows scaring my family. I also don’t want xenophobic war propaganda like Tehran being shoved in my face all the time. so in that regard you are probably right getting into content means you’re going damage your brand unnecessarily when you’re a hardware company.

Yeah, the quality of the shows isn’t really the issue. Self-produced content isn’t needed when so many others are making it. It’s an app away.

Staying out of content and being highly focused on hardware and software that runs them means you’re above the fray and highly focused on product quality. No app can solve that. There’s something to be said about focusing your company on fewer things and doing them well. Hardware advancements and especially software quality are a major problem for this distracted company. They’ve too many projects going on and too many distractions and their core products and rightly their reputation are suffering.

I think it’s another reason they’re having issues retaining and attracting great talent. They’re beginning to lose their way.

 

[macizcool]

I stopped using Apple News because they don’t respect my decision to block certain news outlets. When you block them, their headlines still show on the front page. So yes, the FTC is right.

 

[IIGS User]

I never cared for Apple's News app or whatever. Any source of information that's "curated" will have a bias one way or another. People have lost the ability to think critically and make up their own mind. Most people with strong opinions are just regurgitating whatever they were spoon fed from their "source" of choice. Whether it's right wing or left wing.

People prefer to be led, as opposed to thinking for themselves and having informed opinions. When I research a given position I have, my first stop is sources or opinions that are different than the one I hold. I want my opinion or position to be proved "wrong". I want to hear what the "other side" has to say. I want to form an informed and well thought out position. And I take everything I read with a grain of salt. Just calling it "news" doesn't mean it's credible. I mean, it worked in the Soviet Union for a while until people realized there was no news in Pravda, and no truth in Izvestia.


And people will fight to the BONE over their viewpoint. Whatever viewpoint they've latched on to and never give an inch. Never say "Hmm, maybe I should look into this on my own". Just take a position like they're rooting for the hometown football team and that's IT. No give or take.

 

[Silverstring]

News has always been left leaning and wrong

Famously, the truth has a “liberal” bias.

I fully believe with zero sarcasm that a front page news story could come out tomorrow showing that water consists of 2 hydrogen atoms covalently bonded to an oxygen atom, and we’d have a way too large group of people in the US calling it BS by default because it came from their favorite boogeyman, “the mainstream media”. It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad.

Media literacy and critical thinking are at all-time lows.

Overall these days, most people on all sides are lazy and just pick their “team”-affiliated/approved outlets that only serve to spoon-feed them reinforcement of what they already believe. Converting to an algorithm-based consumption model on all forms of media has only worsened things exponentially for all.

Back in the day, people prognosticated that the “information superhighway” would make us all smarter. Not only has the exact opposite happened, but we live in a world where people who have an elementary-school reading level think 30 minutes of their “own research” (which they somehow can never provide even a SINGLE peer-reviewed source for, despite adamantly claiming “it’s out there” and they’ve seen/read/heard said evidence in multiple places…doctors really need to start looking into the exponential rise of sudden onset amnesia among this population group) stands on equal footing—if not overrides—people who’ve studied and worked on any subject in depth for literal decades.

It’s pathetic how far we’ve fallen as a species.

 

[michaeljk]

All of the sites mentioned by the FTC guy are not news. News means an attempt at accurately stating facts. When Apple News includes an opinion piece (not news), it is clearly marked as "opinion." The moment Apple News includes anything from Fox, Breitbart, NewsMax, NY Post, I will end my subscription to not only News, but will seriously consider dropping my subscription to AppleOne entirely.

I am glad this happened, actually. It shows that only mind-bending sycophancy will suffice for Trump. Making him dumb promises about future investments and giving him a gold award gift doesn't matter. You give, he takes. You give, he takes, until you are not you anymore at all. Hopefully, Tim will decide, screw this, and just do what Apple does, without regard to the Orange Dear Leader in the White House.

 

[ginkobiloba]

Honestly, I think Cook has been unfairly treated on this. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. It’s obvious that he despises everything about this administration, but he really doesn’t have any other choice than do as little ass-kissing as possible, but still have to do it.
He is not dealing with rational people, he is dealing with people acting like mafiosos, who will come to your store with baseball bats and break everything including your knees.

Cook doesn’t own Apple, he is mandated by other people to do what is best for the company and its clients ( users ). And he did. He probably vomits in the toilets everytime after kissing the ring.

Cook has been IMO fairly criticized for a lot of things, but not on this one.

 

[CapitalIdea]

This from the same stupid administration that demands The View have more conservative guests, because they consider it a “news program.”

 

[tomtad]

My opinion: Apple should leave the content business, period. Allow app makers to fill that gap, there are well enough of them.

Focus on building devices and software platforms for developers to build apps for. Focus on improved Pro apps and developer relations and customer experiences.

Make more things cross-platform such as tap-to-share, sending cash and iMessage.

Get rid of half the products you make and make doubly-good the remaining half. Adding an additional display size in many cases. And fix display sizing in general, the laptop display sizes are illogical and confusing, as is iMac.

Simplify product naming across the board. No numbers or childish sub-naming (mini, plus, iPhone 19 Pro Max Extreme Bananas). Just call it iPhone and give it three sizes and make a big fat one called iPhone Ultra in three sizes. No other phones. Apple Display, Apple Display Pro. Simplify.

Address common product complaints. Both hardware and software, including long-time bugs and basic missing and expected features.

Fix the AAA gaming problem.

Create a drag-and-drop design app that also features voice input for shape and gradient generation and manipulation. It’s insane that in 2026 an Apple app developer needs a third party app to make an app icon and branding logo.

After exiting the content businesses, it leaves so much work to do if the focus comes back to being great at the few things you do. It leaves more than enough work.

Tick-tock from software focused year to a hardware focused year, focusing on hardware practical and functionality and software reliability and delight.

Stop trying to be everything and make everything. Refocus on devices. Double iCloud storage tiers.

Agree with a lot of this but I wouldn't go to all content services.

They do have too many mediocre ones though and ones such as News and Fitness+ come to mind which should just be cancelled. Apple doesn't need to be in every market.

I also think that Apple's Pro products needs separating off slightly within the organisation, with their own leadership, to make sure it is striving for the best and not playing second fiddle to the consumer products. I wouldn't include Prosumer products like the iPhone Pro in that, but things like the Mac Studio, MacBook Pro along with Creator Studio apps, maybe even Mac OS.

 

[I7guy]

When you block a channel that Apple curates as a top story, the headline still shows and it just says "You blocked this channel" in place of the image. Not even Google pulls that crap.

Still. If run a blog on the internet consisting of left or right stories, is the ftc going to go after me as well? Even if people subscribe I’m not reporting news I’m rereporting.