Hundreds of federal blog posts ‘critical of Amazon, Microsoft and AI’ removed
March 19, 2025
The Federal Trade Commission has quietly removed over 300 informative blog posts about consumer protection created under the Biden administration.
The posts provided advice to consumers about how to protect themselves amid the rise of artificial intelligence and laid out details about former Biden FTC chair Lina Khan’s landmark privacy lawsuits against big tech companies including Amazon and Microsoft, WIRED reports. President Trump’s FTC has not acknowledged the report.
The move comes months after tech executives flocked to Mar-a-Lago en mass to cozy up to Donald Trump, who allegedly charged a pretty penny for those meetings, before returning to the White House. Many of those CEOs including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Apple’s CEO Tim Cook went on to attend Trump’s inauguration in January.
Zuckerberg also announced at the top of the year that he would be using community notes similar to X in lieu of using fact-checkers to prevent the spread of misinformation online.
He also came after the Biden administration for allegedly pushing him to censor content about the COVID pandemic as it broke out and uncertainty abounded.
Bezos, who bought The Washington Post for $250 million in 2013, also announced that the legacy outlet would be curbing its opinion section to focus on “personal liberties and free markets” after pulling the editorial team’s endorsement for Kamala Harris.
Meanwhile, Trump announced at the top of his second term that $500 billion would be poured in by the private investment sector to build AI infrastructure in the big tech race against foreign competitors.
Sources with ties to the FTC warned that the removal of the posts reflects a chilling crackdown on consumer protection and could lead to legal issues under the Federal Records Act and the Open Government Data Act.
They also expressed concerns about vulnerable consumers’ privacy being exploited by tech companies without explicit information available about their rights.
President Trump tapped Andrew Ferguson, former solicitor general of Virginia from 2022 to 2024, to resume Khan’s role.
Ferguson has crusaded against big tech companies for allegedly shadow-banning conservative content, suggesting recently to CNBC that he may move to make content moderation about “particular views” an antitrust violation.
Ferguson has expressed a desire to revoke Biden-era AI regulations and gains made by Khan to prevent monopolies, according to the The New York Times.
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