The In February, the Federal Trade Commission launched what it called an inquiry on tech censorship.

In the agency's telling, censorship by technology platforms is not just un-American, it is potentially illegal.

The FTC therefore wants, quote, to better understand how technology platforms deny or degrade

users access to services based on the content of their speech. It encouraged anyone who's been banned, shadow ban, demonetized, or otherwise, quote-unquote, censored, to weigh in.

You will not be shocked to learn that this open call for grievances from every crank on the internet produce some entertaining results.

We'll get to that.

What's the end gain here?

Chair Andrew Ferguson and Commissioner Melissa Holyoke have given us clues.

Ferguson warns of, quote, big tech censorship collusion. If our investigation

reveals anti-competitive cartels that facilitate or promote censorship, he says we ought to

bust them up. Holyoke, meanwhile, wants to uncover whether and how companies apply terms and conditions in ways inconsistent with consumers' reasonable expectations.

These comments suggest imminent use of the FTC's Section 5 authority over unfair methods of competition and

unfair or deceptive acts or practices.

But why this? Why now? The big tech censorship panic is yesterday's news. The social media landscape is competitive, even fractured.

Content moderation is a service differentiator. It's a feature, not a bug. And the Supreme Court has

recently confirmed that, in any event, it's protected under the First

Amendment, which makes it none of the FTC's business. Seriously, what are Ferguson and Holyoke

up to? Maybe they're just not very creative, so they're stuck fighting the last war, for lack of anything better to do.

Or maybe they just desperately want the courts to give them a remedial lesson in First Amendment law.

Or perish the thought. Maybe they're simply out to punish enemies and raise their political profiles.

Welcome back to the Tech Policy Podcast.

I'm Corbyn Barthold.

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