{"id":2269,"date":"2026-02-13T00:36:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T00:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=2269"},"modified":"2026-02-13T00:36:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T00:36:27","slug":"demand-answers-now-on-big-techs-biased-news-feeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=2269","title":{"rendered":"Demand answers NOW on Big Tech&#8217;s biased news feeds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2026%2F02%2FAPPL121221.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Congress and the Federal Trade Commission both need to investigate the blatant bias of Apple\u2019s news app \u2014 the latter for deceptive and unfair business practices that abuse the company\u2019s market power; the former, because CEO Tim Cook and his minions must publicly answer questions about how and why Apple is doing this.<\/p>\n<p>Question Google\u2019s Sindar Pinchai, too, and perhaps Meta\u2019s Mark Zuckerberg: While Meta\u2019s been doing better of late, our own experience is that those companies\u2019 \u201cnews\u201d selection leans markedly left, too.<\/p>\n<p>The entire Trump administration took office vowing to take on Big Tech censorship of conservatives, but looks to have gotten caught up in other issues; <em>now<\/em> would an excellent time to pick up the ball.<\/p>\n<p>Credit the Media Research Center with reviving the issue with its smoking-gun study of lefty bias in Apple News\u2019 marque morning feed \u2014 which as of Monday had <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/10\/business\/apple-news-promotes-left-leaning-media-outlets-as-it-shuts-out-conservative-sites-entirely-study\/\">gone <em>96 straight days<\/em><\/a> without showcasing a single story from a conservative publication in its top stories.<\/p>\n<p>Of 620 total stories featured in its high-traffic AM slots in January, over two-thirds (440) came from left-leaning outlets; the other 80, from centrist ones.<\/p>\n<p>Media outfits deemed right-leaning \u2014 including the one you\u2019re reading right now \u2014 got <em>completely<\/em> shut out.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Yes, MRC is a righty outfit \u2014 but it relied on right-center-left classifications done by the nonpartisan organization AllSides.<\/p>\n<p>How much of the bias comes from Apple\u2019s in-house editors, and how much from their (plainly skewed) algorithm is just one of the obvious questions.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, question every Big Tech firm about its \u201cnews\u201d algorithms.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, they\u2019re private enterprises entitled to lean however they like \u2014 but they also make promises to consumers that this bias may break.<\/p>\n<div class=\"single__inline-module inline-module inline-module--newsletter aligncenter inline-module--nypostbusinessunit aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-newsletter\" data-source-unit=\"Inline Newsletter Module Post Opinion\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__inner\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__title-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__unsubmitted-title-wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"inline-module__title headline headline--combo-sm-md\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h3>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"inline-module__title headline headline--combo-sm-md\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\t\t\t\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>FTC chief Andrew Ferguson this week <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/11\/business\/ftc-chairman-warns-that-political-bias-in-apple-news-app-may-violate-consumer-protection-laws\/\">wrote Apple\u2019s Cook<\/a> urging \u201ca comprehensive review of Apple\u2019s terms of service\u201d to \u201censure that Apple News\u2019 curation of articles is consistent with those terms and representations made to consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And, if it isn\u2019t, \u201cto take corrective action swiftly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the legalities, basic fairness is a real issue: Those 620 stories included 34 by The Guardian, a proudly left-of-center publication, and 25 by the unmistakably progressive NPR.<\/p>\n<p>Both outlets do some solid reporting, but so does The Post \u2014 and, again, we were shut out completely despite being one of the nation\u2019s leading-exposure news outlets.<\/p>\n<p>Apple protests that, 1) its app provides access to The Post and other right-of-center outlets among roughly 3,000 publications, and 2) anyone <em>can<\/em> customize their feed to favor different sources.<\/p>\n<p>But that hardly makes up for the <em>default<\/em> product the company carefully curates for the general reader.<\/p>\n<p>And, again, it\u2019s a problem all across Big Tech: In 2023, AllSides did its own study of bias at the 10 most popular news-aggregations services; \u201cright-leaning media is really underrepresented,\u201d observed AllSides\u2019 Julie Mastrine.<\/p>\n<p>Team Trump should be living up to its promises: It\u2019s grand that Ferguson is \u00a0following up now on the MRC\u2019s findings on Apple, but it\u2019d be nice to hear the status of the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/02\/20\/business\/ftc-seeks-publics-input-on-un-american-and-potentially-illegal-big-tech-censorship-including-shadow-banning\/\">FTC inquiry he launched a full <em>year<\/em> ago<\/a> into \u201cpotentially illegal\u201d Big Tech censorship, including \u201cshadow banning\u201d \u2014 covert exclusion of certain viewpoints.<\/p>\n<p>Again, it seems to us that <em>most<\/em> aggregators neglect <em>our<\/em> news, despite their pretensions of neutrality; Congress and the appropriate regulators should be demanding explanations from every one of them.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/12\/opinion\/demand-answers-now-on-big-techs-biased-news-feeds\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Congress and the Federal Trade Commission both need to investigate the blatant bias of Apple\u2019s news app \u2014 the latter for deceptive and unfair business practices&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}