FTC’s Ferguson Says Tech Censorship Practices May Violate Antitrust Law

WASHINGTON, March 25, 2025 – Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson hinted Tuesday that the agency may have the authority to take action against tech companies for censoring user speech — not as a free speech matter, but as a potential abuse of market power.

Speaking at the Free State Foundation’s annual conference here, Ferguson said the FTC isn’t “the censorship police,” but warned that censorship by dominant platforms could fall under the commission’s antitrust or consumer protection purview.

“I’m not looking for censorship qua censorship,” he said. “I’m looking for exercises of market power that might reveal themselves in censorship.”