Marsha Blackburn/PHOTO: Gage Skidmore (CC)
When you purchase an iPhone, you expect a premium product. You do not necessarily expect a digital tutor that decides which news is “fit to print” (or scroll) and which opinions are too “dangerous” for your consumption. Yet, as Senator Marsha Blackburn’s recent letter to Tim Cook (pictured above) suggests, that is exactly what Apple News has become.
According to reporting by the New York Post, Senator Blackburn is demanding that Apple justify its editorial standards following reports of systematic suppression of conservative viewpoints. The Senator’s move highlights an ongoing failure in Big Tech accountability: going beyond mere infrastructure providers to ideological gatekeepers.
The heart of the issue lies in the Apple News algorithm. The company claims the service uses “on-device intelligence” to suggest stories. For a company that prides itself on diversity, there appears to be a startling lack of viewpoint diversity within the mechanisms that shape the worldviews of millions.
This curation is a form of censorship. By burying conservative outlets under a mountain of content from the New York Times and CNN, Apple effectively demonetizes and de-platforms voices that challenge the Silicon Valley consensus. This isn’t just bad for democracy; it’s a violation of the trust consumers place in Cook’s company when they opt into the Apple ecosystem.
Apple’s history of App Store “moderation” provides a chilling context for Blackburn’s concerns.
Apple’s history of prioritizing market access over free expression is perhaps most evident in its compliance with authoritarian demands to silence dissent. In 2019, the company initially approved but then abruptly removed the HKmap.live app after facing intense criticism from Chinese state media; the app had allowed Hong Kong democracy protesters to track police movements and tear gas deployment. More recently, in early 2023, Apple expelled the decentralized social media app Damus from its China App Store at the request of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), which cited “illegal content” that bypassed domestic censorship. Beyond direct government requests, Apple has also utilized its internal App Store guidelines to threaten the global version of Damus with removal over its “zaps” feature—a peer-to-peer Bitcoin tipping mechanism that Apple claimed violated its in-app purchase policies.
We also must remember that Apple threatened to remove Twitter (now X) after Elon Musk took over and reinstated suppressed voices. And then there is the case of Parler. When Apple de-platformed the app in 2021, it sent a clear message to every developer in the world: if your platform allows speech that we don’t like, we will destroy your ability to reach your customers. It took months of “negotiations” and forced changes to Parler’s moderation policies before Cook allowed the app back into the store. Nonetheless the social media site — whose trajectory at the time was very promising — was permanently harmed and is now almost never mentioned.
National Legal and Policy Center has long been a watchdog over Apple’s censorship hypocrisy, especially when it comes to China. We see Apple’s News bias as part of a broader trend of “woke” capital attempting to bypass the democratic process. When the company influences the flow of information, it exercises a form of political power that a high percentage of its users do not appreciate, despite the quality of its technical products.
Senator Blackburn’s inquiry is a vital first step, but it must be followed by action. Shareholders and consumers alike should demand that Apple:
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Disclose Editorial Guidelines: Exactly what criteria are used to label a source as “reliable” or “unreliable”?
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Commit to Viewpoint Neutrality: The Apple News algorithm should be based on user interest, not editorial “guidance” from Cupertino.
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End Authoritarian Collaboration: As we have long argued, Apple must stop removing apps at the behest of the CCP and other regimes that seek to stifle free expression.
America thrives on the free exchange of ideas. By turning the iPhone into a tool for curated conformity, Apple undermines the very principles that allowed it to become one of the world’s most valuable companies (if not the most valuable, depending on the day).
Tim Cook has a choice: he can lead a company that empowers users, or he can continue to lead a company that manages them.
