Media Matters Fights FTC Over ‘Ad Boycott’ Investigation 02/18

The Federal Trade Commission should not be allowed to resume its attempt to investigate Media Matters for America, the watchdog argues in papers filed Tuesday with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“The First Amendment prohibits public officials from weaponizing ‘the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression,'” Media Matters argues, quoting from a recent Supreme Court ruling regarding free speech.

“But in this case, that is precisely what happened,” the group writes, adding that the FTC “wielded its investigatory authority to retaliate against a media organization.”
U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington, D.C. sided with Media Matters, ruling in August that the group was likely to prove that the FTC’s demand for information was issued with “retaliatory animus,” and therefore unconstitutional.

“Speech on matters of public concern is the heartland of the First Amendment,” Sooknanan wrote in an opinion granting Media Matters’ request for an injunction. “It should alarm all Americans when the government retaliates against individuals or organizations for engaging in constitutionally protected public debate.”
The FTC recently sought to lift the injunction, arguing that its investigation concerns “potential anticompetitive collusion in the digital advertising industry to withhold advertising from certain disfavored media.”
“Such concerted action would likely violate the federal antitrust laws and harm the public by reducing competition in markets for advertising purchasing and other advertising-related products or services, which could in turn reduce consumer choice in content, degrade the quality of advertisements, and ultimately stifle debate on matters of public importance,” the agency claimed in papers filed last month with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

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