Trump’s FTC Deletes Blogs Critical of Amazon and Microsoft

For a brief period, maybe even just a second, it seemed as though the populism built into the Donald Trump campaign just might preserve the Lina Khan theory of Big Tech regulation at the Federal Trade Commission. Turns out, not so much. Wired first reported that more than 300 blog posts critical of companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and AI firms—mostly published during the Biden administration while Khan was the head of the agency—have been removed from the agency’s website.

The blogs ranged from details regarding the FTC’s privacy lawsuits against Big Tech firms, business guidance, and consumer protection information, among other content. Wired highlighted several of them, including a post that alerted consumers to allegations that Amazon used data from Ring security cameras to train its algorithms and a post highlighting how Microsoft allegedly collected data from children using Xbox without consent from their parents or guardians.

A valid question in regard to this decision to remove blog posts would be: Why? Getting rid of blog posts does not change the agency’s policies, nor does it erase settlements that it secured with companies for alleged violations of FTC rules. The blog posts are designed to make information that would otherwise likely be bogged down in legalese and mundane policy into digestible material for the general public. Deleting them only serves to cause confusion, which very well might be the point.

It’s worth noting that because these agencies change hands from administration to administration every four or eight years, this is certainly not the first time that a government website has hosted content with which the incoming administration disagrees. But usually, that doesn’t just get straight-up deleted. In fact, per Wired, the Biden administration left blogs from the Trump era up for fear that deleting them might violate the law—specifically, the Federal Records Act and the Open Government Data Act.

None of that should be news to Trump or anyone in his circle, given that he took a fair amount of heat for deleting tweets that were supposed to be archived. Ultimately, no real penalty came of that whole affair, which probably has only emboldened him to continue erasing what he no longer sees as fit.

Prior to taking office, Vice President JD Vance voiced support for FTC chair Lina Khan and her approach to going after Big Tech. On Tuesday, the same day the FTC’s log of blogs from Khan’s office got sent to the shadow realm, Vance appeared at a conference hosted by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz to signal that the Trump administration wants to stay connected with the tech industry and its interests alongside issues that appeal to the populist wing of the party. Consider deleting the FTC’s past criticisms of Big Tech as a possible olive branch.