[HN Gopher] FTC Removes Posts Critical of Amazon, Microsoft, and...
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FTC Removes Posts Critical of Amazon, Microsoft, and AI Companies
Author : gnabgib
Score : 253 points
Date : 2025-03-18 18:27 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| soco wrote:
| Am I right to understand this is signaling an end to the FTC, or
| at least on what concerns it harnessing the will of the tech
| giants?
| JohnFen wrote:
| That's the message I got from it.
| bearjaws wrote:
| Thats not really planned in Project 2025, more likely any large
| tech company that bent the knee to Trump will be exempt, but we
| shall see.
|
| At the same time, the document discusses how large tech
| companies influence politics, and can harm individuals.
|
| > Conservative approaches to antitrust and consumer protection
| continue to trust markets, not government, to give people what
| they want and provide the prosperity and material resources
| Americans need for flourishing, productive, and meaningful
| lives.
|
| > At the same time, conservatives cannot be blind to certain
| developments in the American economy that appear to make
| government-private sector collusion more likely, threaten vital
| democratic institutions, such as free speech, and threaten the
| happiness and mental well-being of many Americans, particularly
| children. Many, but not all, conservatives believe that these
| develop- ments may warrant the FTC's making a careful
| recalibration of certain aspects of antitrust and consumer
| protection law and enforcement.
|
| https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHA...
| cantrecallmypwd wrote:
| There's a conflict between destroying all government,
| corrupting it for personal gain by a given elected official,
| and corrupting it to serve a given owner of a given megacorp.
|
| Somewhere along the way ethics, morals, truth, and serving We
| the People was lost.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| How much did you donate to the Trump campaign? Shouldn't
| the Trump administration serve their supporters? Shouldn't
| they pay more attention to the supporters who support them
| more (in $$)?
| cogman10 wrote:
| Unless you are giving trump literally millions of
| dollars, that doesn't matter.
|
| How much he cares about your opinion is directly
| proportional to the money you give and could give him.
| When competing with a billionaire, 0 -> $100,000 is
| basically meaningless.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| That's the MO of both parties in the US. During the last
| campaign the Democrats bombarded me with E-mails begging
| for money. They never asked for my opinion and never
| mentioned anything they were planning to do. The message
| was "Vote for me or the world will go under"
| gopher_space wrote:
| Keep going until you hit "no taxation without
| representation" and you will have come full circle.
|
| The US needs California. California does not need the US.
| Tostino wrote:
| Sorry, he's not president of the Republicans... He's
| president of the United States, and should be serving
| everyone in the country to the best of his ability.
|
| If you're not being sarcastic, that's a really wild
| belief you have...and I'm really hoping it's not
| widespread.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| "serving everyone in the country"
|
| That's long over. Whoever wins by 1% believes they have
| the mandate to only cater to their constituents (which is
| mostly wealthy donors)
| Tostino wrote:
| I'd like some concrete examples of that happening in the
| Clinton, Obama, or Biden administrations.
|
| I wish Obama acted like he had a mandate and just pushed
| through his agenda...
|
| Instead we had BS like the parliamentarian saying "no you
| can't do that", and the Democrats would simply drop it.
|
| Last time the Republicans had pushback from the
| parliamentarian they just replaced him with somebody that
| would do what they wanted.
|
| Stop pretending this is a "both sides" issue.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| You are right about not prentending this is a "both
| sides" issue, but for the wrong reason. There is only one
| side. Two colors but one side. When the blue team is in
| power, it somehow fails to do all the things that its
| voters want. It is meek and pitiful. Because it is not
| serving the blue voters. It is serving its backers and
| its backers want what the red team wants. So when the
| blue team is in power it magically fails at everything.
| Whoops! I guess blue team people are just ineffective
| liberal losers. When the red team is in power it does
| whatever it wants, because what it wants publicly is what
| their backers want.
| Tostino wrote:
| Well said. No notes.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Imagine paypigging a politician.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| You are arguing for despotism; the patronage model
| outlined in _The Dictator 's Handbook_ and detailed in
| _The Logic of Political Survival_ (both by Alistair Smith
| and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita). This is incompatible with a
| functioning republic.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| > At the same time, conservatives cannot be blind to certain
| developments in the American economy that appear to make
| government-private sector collusion more likely, threaten
| vital democratic institutions, such as free speech, and
| threaten the happiness and mental well-being of many
| Americans, particularly children. Many, but not all,
| conservatives believe that these develop- ments may warrant
| the FTC's making a careful recalibration of certain aspects
| of antitrust and consumer protection law and enforcement.
|
| That's a CYA if I've ever seen one.
|
| They couldn't care less about government-private sector
| collusion. It's literally the dream of the tech Neo-feudalist
| crowd. Before the idea of "private property" came about in
| Enlightenment-era England, some guy owned everything, and the
| commoners labored for his enrichment. Since capitalism - at
| least as we've interpreted it in America - means
| consolidation of massively-capitalized corporations which
| control more numerous and diverse markets, that's kind of the
| endgame when one removes the ability of the government to
| stop such consolidation.
|
| The question is, if nothing is done, who will it be?
| breadwinner wrote:
| Not just FTC. The CFPB, USAID, NHS, Department of Education,
| Research funding to colleges, the list goes on. Anything Elon
| Musk has no use for is getting shut down.
| bagels wrote:
| It's not just "has no use for", but he's seeking revenge for
| being regulated. FTC for telling him he can't do securities
| fraud, FAA & FCC for telling him he has to launch rockets
| responsibly, etc.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| He paid good money to the Trump campaign, and this
| investment is now paying off. Thank you for your vote!
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| Even for folks who thoroughly dislike Trump and all that is
| going on right now... the FTC during the Biden administration
| was truly awful. There is every reason to think Lina Khan was
| deliberately misinterpreting the law to further her anti
| business agenda, and in some cases breaking the law. Everything
| they did during those 4 years should be undone.
| umeshunni wrote:
| (along with everything else published during the Biden
| administration)
| _--__--__ wrote:
| Misleading clickbait heading, article mentions that 4 years of
| blog content were blanket deleted and then randomly implies that
| certain tech issues were targeted among all the other (also-
| deleted) posts. The posts in question are public and available
| here: https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _Misleading clickbait heading_
|
| In fact, the headline kind of underplays the significance --
| everything in that time period was deleted! Including posts
| critical of Amazon, Microsoft, and AI Companies, among
| everything else that was deleted.
|
| > _The posts in question are public and available
| here:https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog_
|
| The deleted posts in question are not available there, because
| they were deleted. Blog jumps from December 2020 to March 2025.
| trod1234 wrote:
| Isn't this in violation of records keeping requirements?
| sophacles wrote:
| What about the last 6 weeks makes you think that has a
| bearing on anything anymore?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| It's still valuable to point out that the crimes of this
| administration _are crimes_. They aren 't going to stop
| doing them until they are stopped. But framing their
| crimes as expected implies they are normal and of no
| particular consequence.
|
| This one thing is, all by itself, worthy of impeachment
| and prison sentences for the people who abetted it. Add
| it to the list, and don't downplay even the small ones.
| If we're going to come out the other side of this every
| one of these violations matters and will need to be
| accounted for.
| Galatians4_16 wrote:
| Can you please be more specific about which
| administration you mean? _This_ investigating
| administration, or _this_ investigated administration?
| They are both equally worthless to me, but I could be
| convinced to care.
| jfengel wrote:
| Out of curiosity, I wanted to see if there actually were
| any penalties. Turns out there are. Among others:
|
| Whoever, having the custody of any such record,
| proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing,
| willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates,
| obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be
| fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three
| years, or both
|
| A different section allows prison terms of up to 10
| years, but only if the "market value" of that data is
| high enough. I'm not sure if this data actually has a
| market value, but it is still a legal requirement to
| preserve.
| acdha wrote:
| The part where they keep having judges reject the
| spurious arguments? People are getting rehired because
| Trump broke the law firing them. USAID was ordered to be
| reopened because they broke the law.
|
| It's not perfect, or enough, but we should stand up for
| the rule of law rather than trying to score Internet
| points by cynically conceding it.
| CursedSilicon wrote:
| And then as the folks who were deported saw. They say
| "fuck the courts" and do it anyway
|
| America is in a terrifying end-game for democracy
| acdha wrote:
| I'm not saying anything about this is good, but I do
| think there are a lot of people who think following the
| law is important and we can use each and every one of
| them. Blatantly ignoring the law is how they lose
| suburban middle class voters and we don't need too many
| of them to flip elections.
| trod1234 wrote:
| In many respects the rule of law was broken long ago
| through judicial activism.
|
| The whirlwind we face today is an inevitable outcome from
| the consequences of those choices.
|
| There are specific components required by a rule of law
| which are not met. It was conceded by past generations
| that still hold political power today as a cohort.
|
| Edit: Do feel free to not believe me and in doing so dig
| into the details and prove me wrong.
|
| A "rule by law" is the system that lacks the components
| required by a "rule of law". This former is the same as
| any totalitarian or fascist state.
|
| Given the time horizon of case resolution, when you can
| find more than 3 instances of failures relating to the
| judicial branch within a few years, in each court, where
| the components are not true, then its failed. 3 is
| sufficient to be statistically significant within a short
| time horizon.
|
| Not a pleasant thought, but neither is burying your head
| in the sand thinking it will be better that you not see
| something, while at the same time choosing to become meat
| for the hungry lion that you didn't want to see.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| > the rule of law was broken long ago through judicial
| activism
|
| unless you have some specifics and produce them, this is
| classic FUD
| jfengel wrote:
| If they've genuinely deleted them, then yes.
|
| If they're archived offline, then no, not necessarily. But
| they'd be on the hook for being able to reply to a FOIA
| request in a timely manner, and I'd bet dollars to donuts
| they didn't even try to verify if backups were made.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| If you're willing to potentially make an enemy, opening
| such a FOIA request might be worth doing.
| jonas21 wrote:
| Why? If you want to read the old blog posts, you can find
| them at the Internet Archive:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20250122132931/https://www.ft
| c.g...
| Loughla wrote:
| Because the Internet archive isn't under a legal
| obligation to prove they have public documents available
| for the people who pay taxes.
|
| It's not about just reading them, it's about being sure
| they're not trying to erase public information that they
| should have.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Erasing history is an important tool in normalizing the
| (current, and many more planned) authoritarian abused of the
| Trump regime.
| croes wrote:
| Delete everything is a good cover up if just want to delete
| certain posts but don't want to make it too obvious
| cantrecallmypwd wrote:
| When technofeudal corporate owners don't just capture the
| regulators but install lackeys in service of them. This is a
| natural progression towards authoritarianism and corruption.
| financetechbro wrote:
| I feel like the corruption part has been well and alive forever
| cogman10 wrote:
| It has been theoretically tamped down with independent
| agencies and watchdogs.
|
| What's happening isn't just business as usual, it's unusual.
| The last president we had that openly defied the courts and
| the law was Andrew Jackson. And even he wasn't so brazen.
|
| What we are finding out is that rules don't mean anything
| without enforcement and the US had a particular unaddressed
| threat in a party that doesn't care about the law and an
| executive agency filled with sycophants.
|
| What the Trump admin is doing was supposed to be resolved
| with impeachment and removal from office. Fat chance
| republicans will react accordingly.
| r00fus wrote:
| Hockeystick curve for corruption right now though.
| dudus wrote:
| Google and Apple will have to up their bribing to stay
| competitive in this new environment
| belter wrote:
| No need, just get some new board members...
|
| "How Joel Kaplan became Mark Zuckerberg's most trusted
| political fixer" -
| https://www.ft.com/content/7a68fd7b-cae3-48ea-83bc-777731013...
| mentalgear wrote:
| A good time to check how Trump's Crypto assets are going ...
| You know, the untraceable virtual money that can be transferred
| back into real money. NOT to say that a person like that would
| be transactional.
| lyu07282 wrote:
| I got the sense that Lina Kahn was a thorn to Harris as well,
| otherwise she would've committed to Kahn's FTC instead of leaving
| it ambiguous and not campaigning on her successes.
|
| https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/24/kamala-harris-lina-...
| 9283409232 wrote:
| A lot of Harris donors wanted Khan gone.
| lyu07282 wrote:
| Yes, but the fact that Harris cared more about her donors
| interests than what people wanted, lost her the election and
| bought us Trump.
| dralley wrote:
| Khan made a lot of good regulatory changes, and some good
| litigation (like RealPage), but a lot of the litigation was
| frankly counterproductive and/or badly handled.
|
| Splitting Chrome off of Google and making it so that Firefox
| can't get search engine royalty payments is not going to lead
| to societally useful outcomes. And voters don't give a shit
| about it either. The FTC could have had much more impact if
| they were focused on, say, healthcare, health insurance,
| preventing private equity from owning (and closing) so many
| hospitals and chains and nursing homes, etc. They did some of
| that but it was very clear that big tech was the focus.
|
| And I'm not against taking on big tech even a little bit, but
| you kind of have to have a plan for the desired outcomes, and
| it doesn't feel like there was much of one.
| lyu07282 wrote:
| She was incredibly popular and people wanted more, Harris
| didn't capitalize on this, she did the opposite.
|
| https://techoversight.org/2024/09/25/khan-kanter-poll/
| kingkilr wrote:
| RealPage was DoJ. As was the Google search litigation where
| DoJ proposed Google divest Chrome.
|
| Which is by way of saying, the FTC and Chair Khan were not
| responsible for those.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| I repeatedly encourage everyone to look the network state to see
| what is unfolding before their eyes.
| internetter wrote:
| https://archive.is/xFwdN
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