FTC removes Lina Khan-era posts about AI risks and open source

The Federal Trade Commission has removed 3 blog posts from the Lina Khan-era that addressed open-source AI and risks of AI to consumers, according to a Wired report.  

One post, titled “On Open-Weights Foundation Models,” was published July 10, 2024. Another, titled “Consumers Are Voicing Concerns About AI,” came retired successful October 2023. A third, authored by Khan’s staff, was published connected January 3, 2025 with the rubric “AI and the Risk of Consumer Harm.” That station noted the FTC was “taking enactment of AI’s imaginable for real-world instances of harm – from incentivizing commercialized surveillance to enabling fraud and impersonation to perpetuating amerciable discrimination.” 

TechCrunch has reached retired to the FTC to larn wherefore the posts were taken down. Khan declined to comment.  

These removals are portion of a broader signifier nether the Trump administration, which began issuing enforcement orders to nonstop national agencies to region oregon modify important amounts of authorities content.

After his inauguration, Trump besides installed a caller head of the FTC and removed respective FTC commissioners, installing enactment that focused little connected Khan’s assertive antitrust docket and much connected deregulation for Big Tech. In September, caller FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson submitted recommendations for deleting oregon revising anticompetitive regulations crossed the full national government.

The blog posts astir precocious removed by the FTC, which focused connected user harm, don’t look to align with the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan. That program has reduced its absorption connected information and guardrails, alternatively favoring accelerated maturation and contention with China. However, the Trump medication has been vocal astir backing open-source initiatives.  

Former FTC nationalist affairs manager Douglas Farrar told TechCrunch: “I was shocked to spot the Andrew Ferguson led FTC beryllium truthful retired of enactment with the Trump White House connected this awesome to the market.”

This is not the archetypal clip this administration’s FTC has removed content. In March, Wired reported that the FTC removed astir 300 posts related to AI, user protection, and the agency’s lawsuits against tech companies similar Amazon and Microsoft.  

While hundreds of blog posts from Khan’s tenure and earlier stay connected the agency’s Office of Technology Blog, Ferguson’s FTC has yet to people immoderate posts to the site, contempt the accelerated gait of the AI race, which has resulted successful respective concern mergers and acquisitions — including acqui-hires — that could beryllium seen arsenic anticompetitive.

The FTC blog culling follows the Trump administration’s removal oregon modification of thousands of authorities web pages and datasets, peculiarly contented related to diversity; equity, and inclusion; sex identity; nationalist health; and biology policy. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has removed information connected topics ranging from chronic aesculapian conditions to HIV/AIDS. The Justice Department has removed studies connected hatred crimes, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has taken down the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment reports.  

The removal of contented – including the blog posts from the FTC – could interruption the Federal Records Act, which requires national agencies to sphere records that decently papers authorities activities, and the Open Government Data Act, which requires agencies to people their information arsenic “open data” by default. 

The Biden administration’s FTC enactment placed informing labels connected contented published during erstwhile administrations that it disagreed with, according to Wired.