Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requests for public comment regarding technology platform censorship in USA

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recently requested public comments regarding censorship by tech platforms from people who feel they have been denied, degraded, demonetized, shadow-banned, or censored otherwise due to their speech or affiliations, including activities that take place outside the platform.

The FTC is seeking public comment on how consumers may have been harmed by tech platforms that limited their ability to share ideas or affiliations freely and openly. Learn more: https://t.co/jv7ByMx0Un

Submit a public comment by May 21, 2025: https://t.co/TLmLVDdvLP #censorship

— FTC (@FTC) April 25, 2025

In the press release, the FTC mentioned that technology platforms may employ opaque or unpredictable internal procedures to restrict users’ access to services, often without any advance notice or sharing little information about the alleged violations that led to their dismissal or downgrading on the platform. While technology platforms may similarly deny their users a meaningful opportunity to challenge or appeal the platforms’ decisions.

For such cases, FTC staff encourages members of the public, including current and former employees of technology platforms, to comment on any issues or concerns that are relevant to the FTC’s consideration of this topic, including, but not limited to, the following questions-

• Under what circumstances have platforms denied or degraded (shadow banned, demonetized, etc) users’ access to services based on the content of the users’ speech or affiliation?
• At the time of adverse actions, did the platforms have policies or make other public-facing statements about how they would regulate, censor, or moderate users’ conduct on and off the platform?
• Did the platform represent, implicitly or explicitly, whether users had the ability to challenge or appeal adverse actions that deny or degrade the affected users’ access to services?
• How did the platforms’ adverse actions affect users (including creators of content)?
• What factors motivated platforms’ decisions to adopt their policies or to take adverse actions?
• Were platforms’ adverse actions made possible by a lack of competition? Did the practices and policies affect competition?

How to submit your comment?

• Go to the docket on regulations.gov
• Click Browse Documents
• Underneath the document containing the RF1 questions, click the comment
• Fill out the form
• You can submit as an individual or organization, or anonymously [Optional: attachments to aid your response. You can attach up to 20 files (10MB each)]

Users are advised not to include sensitive or confidential information in the comments, like social security numbers, date of birth, driver’s license numbers, or other state identification numbers, financial account information, sensitive health information, or competitively sensitive information.