Apple has announced a new “midterms election” feature for its official News app, which will feed users election content from a cherry-picked group of left-leaning and establishment news outlets that the tech giants considers “trusted sources.”
Instead of letting users decide what news they want to see on their phones, Apple confirmed that it intends to deliver exclusive news and opinion to their users that have been “curated by Apple News editors from trusted publishers.”
“Today more than ever people want information from reliable sources, especially when it comes to making voting decisions,” said Lauren Kern, editor-in-chief of Apple News. “By presenting quality news from trustworthy sources and curating a diverse range of opinions, Apple News aims to be a responsible steward of those conversations and help readers understand the candidates and the issues.”
Despite promising a “diverse range of opinions”, only one conservative news source, Fox, is mentioned as being part of the program.
Other “trusted” sources included by Apple include far-left Vox Media, and the rabidly anti-Trump Washington Post. Politico and Axios are also included. The election-focused features are live on Apple devices now.
Apple’s plan mirrors that of Facebook, which recently announced it will partner with 80 undisclosed publications to produce exclusive news content ahead of the midterm elections.
Caving in to pressure from corporate media, including Rupert Murdoch, Facebook said it would directly fund news programming, including shows from CNN’s Anderson Cooper and from far-left outlet Mic.com.
As the masters of the universe give themselves even more power to decide what news their users consume, they face pushback from conservatives and the Trump movement. Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale, RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, and House Majority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) recently met with Mark Zuckerberg to discuss censorship of conservatives on the platform. This followed a letter from McDaniel and Parscale to Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, urging them to address bias against conservative content on their platforms.