Latest news with #FederalTradeCommissionAct
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Elon Musk's vendetta against Media Matters morphs into Trump administration investigation
Amid 'first buddy' Elon Musk's ongoing public war against Media Matters for America, the Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into the liberal media watchdog over what it says could be illegal collusion with advertisers. Essentially piggybacking on Musk's lawsuits against Media Matters over the group's research into hateful and antisemitic content on the mega-billionaire's social media platform X, the FTC sent a letter to the organization requiring it to share communications and documents related to its research, as well as copies of its budgets. 'This demand is issued pursuant to Section 20 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. § 57b-1, in the course of an investigation to determine whether there is, has been, or may be a violation of any laws administered by the Federal Trade Commission by conduct, activities, or proposed action as described in Item 3,' the letter states. Media Matters president Angelo Carusone said the formal government probe was an escalation of President Donald Trump's efforts to punish his critics, which have resulted in executive orders against law firms, investigations into Democratic-aligned groups, and threats against media outlets. 'The Trump administration has been defined by naming right-wing media figures to key posts and abusing the power of the federal government to bully political opponents and silence critics,' Carusone said in a statement. 'It's clear that's exactly what's happening here, given Media Matters' history of holding those same figures to account. These threats won't work; we remain steadfast to our mission,' he added. The FTC declined to comment. Earlier this spring, the president dismissed the last two remaining Democrats on the FTC, calling into question the commission's independence. While the commission is supposed to be made up of five commissioners who serve seven-year terms, with no more than three from any political party, the FTC currently has just three members – all Republican. Musk, who served as a close adviser to Trump and has championed himself as a 'free speech absolutist,' sued Media Matters for defamation in 2023 and blamed it for an advertiser exodus from X over a 'harmful' report that showed pro-Nazi posts appearing next to blue-chip company ads. Since then, Musk launched another lawsuit against an industry group that represents a slew of global brands and advertisers, accusing it of conspiring to cut off X's advertising revenue. The world's richest man has also filed additional complaints against Media Matters across the world, while sympathetic GOP state attorneys have spun up their own Musk-related civil investigations into the liberal organization. A federal judge halted those probes last year, stating that they were being used 'to retaliate against a media organization for protected speech.' In March, Media Matters went on offense and sued X for breach of contract over the multiple lawsuits Musk has filed against the group, which includes complaints in Ireland and Singapore, claiming the tech mogul was engaging in 'a vendetta-driven campaign of libel tourism.' 'X's worldwide campaign of intimidation seeks to punish Media Matters for exercising its core First Amendment rights on a matter of public importance,' the lawsuit alleges. 'This Court should stop X's antics and enforce the forum selection clause that X itself drafted.' The Tesla CEO's vendetta against Media Matters has forced the non-profit group to make severe cutbacks amid the financial strain of the escalating court battles. The watchdog laid off roughly a dozen writers and researchers last year and has scaled back much of its work in recent months. Carusone has therefore spent much of the past year meeting with donors and allies while attempting to raise enough money to keep Media Matters afloat. Meanwhile, the Trump-led government seemingly doing the bidding of a close ally of the president's, who donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the GOP in the past year, has already prompted quite a bit of criticism. 'Of course, if the roles were reversed—if a Democratic administration were using the FTC to target a conservative media watchdog because George Soros didn't like its reporting—outlets like Fox News would never stop covering it,' Status founder Oliver Darcy wrote. 'There would be front-page stories, members of Congress would be pressured to hold hearings, and endless screeds about weaponizing government would saturate social media platforms like X.'
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's FTC Chair Is Continuing To Push Lina Khan's Antitrust Ideology
On February 26, new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Andrew Ferguson announced the creation of the Joint Labor Task Force, continuing former Chair Lina Khan's departure from what is known as the consumer welfare standard. Congress established the FTC in 1914 to prevent unfair competition and deceptive business practices. This has primarily meant "protecting Americans in their role as consumers," according to Ferguson. The FTC enforces the Clayton Antitrust Act, which outlawed price discrimination between customers, exclusive dealing, interlocking directorates, and mergers or acquisitions that "substantially reduce competition." But Khan was more interested in Americans' role as producers than consumers. In 2022 she signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the National Labor Relations Board to "protect workers against unfair methods of competition, unfair or deceptive acts or practices, and unfair labor practices," such as restrictive contract provisions. In August 2023, Khan signed a similar MOU with the Department of Labor recognizing both agencies' shared commitment to protecting workers from deceptive earnings claims, restrictive noncompete and nondisclosure contracts, and the "impact of labor market concentration." Alden Abbott, the FTC's general counsel from 2018–2021, opposed the MOUs. Abbott argued in September 2023 that labor market oversight is "far-removed from the FTC's statutory mandate to focus on combating impediments to competition and consumer protection [and] would reduce the funding available to attack fraudulent and clearly anticompetitive acts." Khan's FTC went further, attempting to ban noncompete agreements in April 2024, describing them as an unfair method of competition in violation of the FTC Act. Ferguson dissented on legal grounds, arguing that the Commission does not possess the power "to declare categorically unlawful a species of contract that was lawful when the Federal Trade Commission Act was adopted." Though Ferguson opposed banning noncompetes, he still identifies them as one of 12 anticompetitive labor practices under FTC jurisdiction. Ferguson has directed his new Joint Labor Task Force to "prioritize investigation and prosecution" of such practices and to advocate regulatory and legislative changes that would address them. Ferguson's endorsement of the 2023 joint merger guidelines, along with his hostility to the tech industry and support for enforcing the anti–price discrimination Robinson-Patman Act, all suggest a continuation of Khan's activist antitrust ideology. The Joint Labor Task Force is yet more evidence. The post Trump's FTC Chair Is Continuing To Push Lina Khan's Antitrust Ideology appeared first on
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The FTC's Probe Into 'Potentially Illegal' Content Moderation Is a Blatant Assault on the First Amendment
Today is the deadline for public comments regarding a "public inquiry" by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) into the "potentially illegal" content moderation practices of social media platforms. As many of those comments note, that investigation impinges on the editorial discretion that the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly said is protected by the First Amendment. "Tech firms should not be bullying their users," FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said when the agency launched its probe in February. "This inquiry will help the FTC better understand how these firms may have violated the law by silencing and intimidating Americans for speaking their minds." Ferguson touts his investigation as a blow against "the tyranny of Big Tech" and "an important step forward in restoring free speech." His chief complaint is that "Big Tech censorship" discriminates against Republicans and conservatives. But even if that were true, there would be nothing inherently illegal about it. The FTC suggests that social media companies may be engaging in "unfair or deceptive acts or practices," which are prohibited by Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. To substantiate that claim, the agency asked for examples of deviations from platforms' "policies" or other "public-facing representations" concerning "how they would regulate, censor, or moderate users' conduct." It wanted to know whether the platforms had applied those rules faithfully and consistently, whether they had revised their standards, and whether they had notified users of those changes. If platforms fall short on any of those counts, the FTC implies, they are violating federal law. But that position contradicts both the agency's prior understanding of its statutory authority and the Supreme Court's understanding of the First Amendment. The FTC's authority under Section 5 "does not, and constitutionally cannot, extend to penalizing social media platforms for how they choose to moderate user content," Ashkhen Kazaryan, a senior legal fellow at the Future of Free Speech, argues in a comment that the organization submitted on Tuesday. "Platforms' content moderation policies, even if controversial or unevenly enforced, do not fall within the scope of deception or unfairness as defined by longstanding FTC precedent or constitutional doctrine. Content moderation practices, whether they involve the removal of misinformation, the enforcement of hate speech policies, or the decision to abstain from moderating content users don't want to see, do not constitute the type of economic or tangible harm the unfairness standard was designed to address. While such policies may be the subject of vigorous public debate, they do not justify FTC intervention." The FTC says "an act or practice is 'unfair' if it 'causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to consumers which is not reasonably avoidable by consumers themselves and not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or to competition'" (emphasis in the original). "In most cases," the FTC explains, "a substantial injury involves monetary harm, as when sellers coerce consumers into purchasing unwanted goods or services or when consumers buy defective goods or services on credit but are unable to assert against the creditor claims or defenses arising from the transaction. Unwarranted health and safety risks may also support a finding of unfairness." It is not obvious how that standard applies to, say, a Facebook user who complains that the platform erroneously or unfairly deemed one of his posts misleading. Nor does the FTC's long-established definition of "deception" easily fit the "Big Tech censorship" to which Ferguson objects. The FTC says "deception" requires "a representation, omission or practice that is likely to mislead the consumer." It mentions several examples of "practices that have been found misleading or deceptive," including "false oral or written representations, misleading price claims, sales of hazardous or systematically defective products or services without adequate disclosures, failure to disclose information regarding pyramid sales, use of bait and switch techniques, failure to perform promised services, and failure to meet warranty obligations." To justify FTC action, consumers must reasonably rely on a deceptive representation, omission, or practice, which must be "material," meaning it is "likely to affect the consumer's conduct or decision with regard to a product or service." In that situation, the FTC says, "consumer injury is likely, because consumers are likely to have chosen differently but for the deception." This definition also poses puzzles in the context of social media moderation. Suppose a YouTube user complains that the platform has arbitrarily imposed age restrictions on access to his videos. If he knew that was going to happen, he says, he would have "chosen differently," meaning he would have picked a competing video platform instead of investing time and effort in building his YouTube channel. Does that constitute the sort of "consumer injury" that the FTC Act was meant to address? It seems doubtful, especially since YouTube is free, so using it does not entail purchasing "a product or service." The complaints generated by the FTC's "request for public comment" illustrate the problems with trying to treat content moderation decisions as violations of Section 5. "In 2020," says one, "I was posting about [Donald] Trump, memes and such. Also about the vaccines and CoVid being a money grab. I was put in Facebook jail and put on restriction several times for 'misinformation.' I quit Facebook because of this. I miss seeing my family and friends' life adventures but I will not be silenced because of lies." Around the same time, another commenter reports, "I lost my Facebook AND Twitter accounts for supporting Donald Trump. I DID NOT [write] misleading, outrageous conspiracy-based posts, and didn't even post daily. I was just CANCELLED one day, with NO warnings or previous actions against me. My 79 year old mother, who has since passed, was treated the same." We can be reasonably confident that Facebook and Twitter would have explained these decisions based on rationales other than outrage at expressions of support for Donald Trump. Does the FTC really plan to adjudicate such disputes, choosing between contending versions of what happened and deciding whether it contradicted the platforms' avowed policies? Any attempt to police content moderation under this legal theory inevitably would interfere with decisions that the Supreme Court has said are constitutionally protected. Last July, the Court recognized that social media platforms, in deciding which speech to host and how to present it, are performing essentially the same function as newspapers that decide which articles to publish. "Traditional publishers and editors," Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the majority opinion, "select and shape other parties' expression into their own curated speech products," and "we have repeatedly held that laws curtailing their editorial choices must meet the First Amendment's requirements." That principle, Kagan said, "does not change because the curated compilation has gone from the physical to the virtual world. In the latter, as in the former, government efforts to alter an edited compilation of third-party expression are subject to judicial review for compliance with the First Amendment." That decision involved Florida and Texas laws that, like Ferguson's dubious assertion of regulatory authority, aimed to fight "Big Tech censorship" by restricting content moderation. "Texas does not like the way those platforms are selecting and moderating content, and wants them to create a different expressive product, communicating different values and priorities," Kagan observed. "But under the First Amendment, that is a preference Texas may not impose." Ferguson is attempting something similar by suggesting that social media platforms may be engaging in "unfair or deceptive" trade practices when they "deny or degrade" users' "access to services" based on "the content of users' speech." In practice, ensuring "fair" treatment of users means overriding editorial decisions that the FTC deems opaque, unreasonable, inconsistent, or discriminatory. Ferguson's avowed goal is to increase the diversity of opinions expressed on social media. Like Texas, he wants platforms to offer "a different expressive product" that better fits his personal preferences. "Holding platforms liable under Section 5 for content moderation policies would necessarily intrude upon their editorial judgment," Kazaryan notes. "The First Amendment not only protects the right to speak but also the right not to speak and to curate content. The Supreme Court has never held that editorial discretion must be evenly or flawlessly applied to qualify for constitutional protection." The FTC also suggests that content moderation practices "affect competition, may have resulted from a lack of competition, or may have been the product of anti-competitive conduct." But Kazaryan notes that platforms compete based on different approaches to moderation. "The existence of platforms such as Rumble, Mastodon, Substack, Truth Social, and Bluesky," he writes, "demonstrates that users have choices in moderation environments." Those environments also evolve over time based on business judgments or changes in ownership. "Under its previous leadership, Twitter developed strict rules against misinformation and hate speech," Kazaryan notes. "Following Elon Musk's acquisition, the platform reassessed those policies and relaxed many of them, allowing for broader latitude in political and ideological speech. Some saw this as irresponsible. Others viewed it as a welcome rebalancing in favor of free expression. Both views are valid. But neither justifies government intervention. The fact that a private entity revised its speech rules to reflect the views of new ownership is not a violation of law; it is a demonstration of First Amendment rights in action." Kazaryan also cites changes in moderation policies at Meta, which this year switched "from a top-down enforcement model to a new community fact-checking system that lets users add context to viral posts through crowd-sourced notes" on Facebook and Instagram. And he notes that YouTube has revised its "moderation policies on election and health information in light of shifting scientific consensus and public debate." None of those changes "are inherently deceptive, unfair, or anticompetitive," Kazaryan writes. "A platform's decision to use a top-down moderation system or a community notes model is a design choice and an editorial judgment that the Supreme Court recognizes as protected by the First Amendment." Kazaryan also questions the premise that social media are systematically biased against right-of-center views. "Conservative accounts, influencers, and news sources have reached massive audiences across all major social media platforms," he notes. "Data from the last several years shows how right-leaning voices have successfully promoted their perspectives online." Kazaryan backs up that assessment with several pieces of evidence. In the final quarter of 2019, for example, Breitbart's Facebook page "racked up more likes, comments, and shares" than The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today combined. Kazaryan adds that President Donald Trump's "own social media presence remains unmatched; his accounts across platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and Truth Social collectively boast nearly 170 million followers, significantly outpacing his political rivals." A 2020 Media Matters study, Kazaryan notes, "found that right-leaning pages garnered more total interactions than both left-leaning and non-aligned pages." A 2021 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences "revealed that Twitter's algorithmic amplification favored right-leaning news sources over left-leaning ones in six out of seven countries studied, including the United States." A 2024 Pew Research Center study of "news influencers" on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube found they were "more likely to identify with the political right than the left." Even if you don't find this evidence persuasive, there is a fundamental contradiction between Ferguson's basic beef about "Big Tech censorship"—that "these firms" are "silencing and intimidating Americans for speaking their minds"—and the main legal theory he is floating. Ferguson thinks social media platforms should treat all users equally, without regard to the opinions they express. But his argument that they are guilty of "unfair or deceptive" trade practices hinges on the premise that they are surreptitiously suppressing politically or ideologically disfavored content while claiming to be evenhanded. If they openly discriminated against conservatives, there would be no grounds for FTC intervention under Section 5 even based on Ferguson's improbably broad reading of that provision. The post The FTC's Probe Into 'Potentially Illegal' Content Moderation Is a Blatant Assault on the First Amendment appeared first on
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump is trying to fire antitrust commissioners. They say it's 'blatantly illegal'
One of the entrances to the Federal Trade Commission Building in Washington, DC, that serves as the headquarters of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Two Democratic antitrust commissioners fighting in court for their jobs this week blasted Trump's attempt to fire them. In a court filing, they said the move would destabilize the economy and 'brush aside a century of precedent.' The Federal Trade Commission is one of two federal agencies tasked with enforcing antitrust law. In the past several years it has sued huge health care conglomerates, as well as big tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta. It also blocked the merger of grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons. So the FTC might not be terribly popular in some corporate boardrooms these days. Anticompetitive practices by giant players are thought to have resulted in lower wages and higher prices for consumers. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The other federal antitrust watchdog, the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, has roots going back to 1903. But that department is overseen by the Attorney General, a presidential appointee. In 1914, Congress passed the Federal Trade Commission Act creating an antitrust watchdog that is more insulated from politics. It provided for a minimum number of appointees from each party, provided them with seven-year terms and allowed reappointment. Crucially, presidents can only remove them for 'inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.' Despite that, news broke in March that Trump was trying to fire commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter, both Democratic appointees. Trump was doing so without alleging any of the deficiencies required by the law to allow for their dismissal. In a social media post, Bedoya said Trump was trying to do a favor for his ultra-rich supporters. 'Now, the president wants the FTC to be a lapdog for his golfing buddies,' Bedoya wrote. Trump has also tried to remove commissioners from independent agencies such as the Federal Election Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protections Board and the National Transportation Safety Board. Critics, including Slaughter and Bedoya, said that undermining such independent agencies would undermine faith in and the stability of the national economy. In a court brief justifying the FTC firings, Trump's lawyers wrote that following the provisions of the Federal Trade Commission Act would improperly limit the president's authority. 'An order requiring the president to reinstate officials he has chosen to remove from office would be an extraordinary intrusion on the president's exclusive authority to exercise control over the executive branch,' the filing said, according to Newsweek. Lawyers for the Democratic FTC commissioners said that's a gross misreading of the law and history. Trump is asking the court 'to brush aside a century of precedent in favor of an untenable reading of (the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Seila Law v Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) that ignores broad swaths of that opinion, misconstrues the FTC's authority, side-steps much of U.S. history, and would overturn several Supreme Court decisions and invalidate two-dozen statutes adopted and adhered to by nearly every President and Congress over the last 150 years,' Bedoya and Slaughter's lawyers said in a court filing. Late last month, a Trump ally, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, made another move that critics said was intended to protect the president's wealthy supporters — particularly Elon Musk, the world's richest man — from antitrust enforcement. From his perch as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jordan tried to insert in a spending bill a measure that would move the FTC's personnel and funding to the Justice Department. However, it wouldn't have moved the FTC's unique enforcement powers along with them. Jordan later withdrew the measure. The Democratic FTC commissioners are fighting in court to stop Trump's attempt to fire them, calling it 'blatantly illegal.' They and lawyers for the president are asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to decide the case on an expedited basis. In a written statement, a lawyer for a firm representing the Democratic commissioners, Clarick, Gueron, Reisbaum, said Trump is ignoring past decisions of the judiciary. '… it's undisputed that his attempted firings violate the plain language of the FTC Act, and the President's claim to inherent executive authority to fire FTC Commissioners defies 90 years of Supreme Court precedent,' the lawyer, Aaron Crowell, said. A lawyer for another group representing Slaughter and Bedoya, Protect Democracy, said Trump is trying to ignore not only the courts, but Congress as well. And in so doing, the president threatens to destabilize the U.S. economy, said the lawyer, Amit Agarwal. 'Congress had good reasons for protecting regulators from at-will removal, not the least of which is that agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Reserve need to have the ability to make critical decisions with integrity and to apply the law without fear or favor,'Agarwal said. 'When the Supreme Court settled this dispute nine decades ago, it decided in favor of Congress's right to protect the public interest. We hope the courts do so again.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Critics say Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan wanted to gut antitrust agency as favor to billionaires
Ohio U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan stands with dozens of people calling for stopping the vote count in Pennsylvania on Nov. 5, 2020 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. (Photo by) U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio wanted to slip a sweeping measure into a spending bill that would gut the Federal Trade Commission. Critics say it's no coincidence that the FTC is suing mammoth health care conglomerates and tech giants like Amazon. Jordan is chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee. Last week, it released a version of a bill that included tax cuts, federal spending cuts and more spending at the border. It also contained provisions that would give Trump sweeping new powers to gut government regulations. It would also transfer funds and personnel currently controlled by the FTC to the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department — without the FTC's unique enforcement authority going with them. The measure was abruptly nixed, but it would have effectively killed antitrust powers Congress created more than a century ago. Amid abuses to consumers by big corporations, the Federal Trade Commission Act was passed in 1914. Antitrust enforcement by the Department of Justice dates back further, to 1903. But the Justice Department is overseen by the attorney general, a presidential appointee. Attorneys general traditionally have had a high degree of independence, but Trump is said to be politicizing the Justice Department at a breakneck pace. The FTC was created in part to be more independent. It's governed by commissioners from both parties who are appointed to fixed terms that can be renewed. Earlier this year, Trump tried to fire the two Democratic commissioners, but they say the move was illegal, and they're fighting it in court. Antitrust advocates said Trump was doing that as a favor to his billionaire supporters such as Elon Musk. The two Democratic commissioners, Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter, acted to block the Kroger-Albertson's mega-merger, and they voted to sue Amazon, saying it is 'illegally maintaining monopoly power.' Under Jordan's leadership, the Judiciary Committee in 2023 attacked the FTC on behalf of Musk. He's the world's richest man, whom Trump is allowing to make deep cuts to federal programs for the elderly, veterans, the poor, and agencies that promote science and health. 'THE WEAPONIZATION OF THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION: AN AGENCY'S OVERREACH TO HARASS ELON MUSK'S TWITTER,' read the all-caps title of the Jordan-led committee's report. A year earlier, the FTC had charged Twitter with using deceptively gathered data from users to target ads at them. If true, it would be added to the fact that an unofficial, Musk-run entity is now collecting much more sensitive government data. It's raised concerns among several federal judges who said such collections invite abuse and likely violate the law. 'One of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency lieutenants working in the Social Security Administration has been pushing dubious claims about noncitizens voting, apparently using access to data that court records suggest (the so-called Department of Government Efficiency) isn't supposed to have,' NPR reported earlier this month. The proposal from Jordan to gut the FTC could have halted major initiatives to regulate giant health conglomerates that own powerful pharmacy middlemen, said Bedoya, one of the commissioners Trump is trying to fire. Jordan's office didn't respond to a request for comment on this story. Each of the three conglomerates — UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health and Cigna-Express Scripts — is among the 15 largest corporations in the United States. Each owns a top-ten health insurer and each owns a pharmacy middleman known as a pharmacy benefit manager, or PBM. Combined, the PBMs control nearly 80% of the insured drug transactions in the United States. They decide which drugs are covered and use that power to extract rebates from drugmakers. They also determine varying reimbursements to pharmacies — including ones owned by their parent companies as well as the pharmacies with which they compete. Critics — including four-fifths of state attorneys general — say they have a conflict of interest under the arrangement, and that they abuse it. Last October, the FTC sued the conglomerates, saying they used their dominance in multiple parts of the marketplace to illegally jack up the price of insulin — a drug millions of diabetics need to survive. The lawsuit comes after the agency in 2022 undertook a major investigation of the health conglomerates. In January, it released an interim report accusing the PBMs of using their dominance to instigate wild price hikes and possibly steer business to affiliated pharmacies. Politico recently reported that Jordan said his move to consolidate the FTC into the Justice Department was meant to 'address the cost of over-regulation.' 'Part of our jurisdiction in Judiciary deals with regulatory concerns and so we are looking at … spending and costs associated with certain regulations. That's why that language is written the way it was,' Politico reported him as saying. Many businesses facing regulation — and their advocates in government — have long focused only on the costs. But government regulation can also protect health, safety, the environment, economic stability and competition. Some researchers have said regulation can always be smarter, but its benefits far outweigh the costs. In a social media post last week, Bedoya, the FTC commissioner, said Jordan's proposed changes to the agency served another agenda. 'This will gut the FTC,' Bedoya wrote. 'FTC is trying to finish a study that already showed how pharmacy middlemen mark up cancer drugs by up to 4,000%. It's also suing them for allegedly competing to raise insulin prices. If this passes I have no idea what'll happen to that study and lawsuit.' Bedoya added, 'Take the lawsuit. The draft bill purports to transfer FTC lawyers and lawsuits to DOJ — but it doesn't transfer the laws that FTC enforces, or authority to enforce those laws. Look (at) page 98 — employees, assets, funding — but no authorities.' Bedoya also said that when it created the FTC, Congress meant to augment the government's antitrust powers. Jordan's changes would remove the government's ability to police 'unfair methods of competition,' Bedoya said, implying that Jordan was trying to slash the government's power to police wealthy corporations in an era when the political influence of the mega-rich is exploding and the wealth gap is yawning. 'The purpose behind the FTC's creation in 1914 was to supplement the existing enforcement mechanism (and enforcement gap created by) the Department of Justice,' Bedoya said on X. 'When FTC was created in 1914, it alone was authorized to stop something called 'unfair methods of competition.' DOJ did not get this' under Jordan's proposal. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
