According to a report from Wired, the Federal Trade Commission has taken down three blog articles from Lina Khan’s tenure that discussed open source AI and the potential dangers AI poses to consumers.
One of the removed posts, “On Open-Weights Foundation Models,” was published on July 10, 2024. Another, “Consumers Are Voicing Concerns About AI,” appeared in October 2023. The third, written by Khan’s staff, was titled “AI and the Risk of Consumer Harm” and published on January 3, 2025. That article highlighted the FTC’s awareness of AI’s capacity to cause tangible harm, such as encouraging commercial surveillance, facilitating fraud and impersonation, and reinforcing unlawful discrimination.
TechCrunch contacted the FTC to inquire about the reasons for the removals. Khan chose not to provide a statement.
These deletions are part of a wider trend that began under the Trump administration, which issued executive orders instructing federal agencies to eliminate or alter significant portions of government information.
Following his inauguration, Trump appointed a new FTC chair and dismissed several commissioners, replacing them with leaders who prioritized deregulation for major tech companies over Khan’s assertive antitrust strategy. In September, the new FTC Chair, Andrew Ferguson, recommended eliminating or revising regulations considered anticompetitive throughout the federal government.
The FTC’s most recently deleted blog entries, which centered on consumer risks, appear to diverge from the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan. That strategy has shifted away from emphasizing safety and oversight, instead promoting rapid advancement and competition with China. Nonetheless, the administration has openly supported open source projects.
Douglas Farrar, former FTC public affairs director, told TechCrunch, “I was stunned to see the FTC under Andrew Ferguson act so differently from the Trump White House in sending this message to the industry.”
This is not the first instance of the current FTC leadership removing content. Wired reported in March that the agency deleted approximately 300 posts related to AI, consumer rights, and lawsuits against tech giants such as Amazon and Microsoft.
Although hundreds of blog posts from Khan’s leadership and earlier remain available on the agency’s Office of Technology Blog, Ferguson’s FTC has yet to add any new entries, despite the rapid developments in AI, including numerous mergers, acquisitions, and acqui-hires that could raise antitrust concerns.
The FTC’s removal of blog content follows a broader effort by the Trump administration to delete or revise thousands of federal web pages and datasets, especially those addressing diversity, equity, inclusion, gender identity, public health, and environmental issues. For instance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has eliminated data on topics like chronic illnesses and HIV/AIDS. The Justice Department has taken down hate crime research, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has removed congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment reports.
Removing these materials—including the FTC blog posts—may breach the Federal Records Act, which obligates agencies to maintain records that accurately reflect government operations, as well as the Open Government Data Act, which requires agencies to make their data publicly accessible by default.
Wired also reported that under the Biden administration, FTC leaders placed warning notices on content from previous administrations that they disagreed with.
