FTC's rule banning fake online reviews goes into effect

Is there something about the American system such that the FTC is more active/aggressive during Democrat office? Anyone else notice this trend? If it's real what causes it?

Of course. The chair of the FTC is a political position so changes with each administration. Very broadly, US Democrats are more in favor of regulation to stop abuses and US Republicans are more ‘hands off, the market will sort it out’ in their approach.

>Is there something about the American system such that the FTC is more active/aggressive during Democrat office?

Well republicans generally shoot down anything that is pro-consumer at the cost of business profits, even when it's related to consumer awareness or safety, so the only way to get decent pro-consumer rules enacted is when democrats are in power.

With the FTC in particular, neither party wanted the FTC to be aggressive. Biden wanted to appoint someone else but had all his appointments blocked by the far-right. Lina Khan got in because populists (left and right) saw her as a weapon that could be wielded against Big Tech.

There's actually a big cloud hanging over the Kamala Harris candidacy over whether or not Lina Khan will remain FTC chair. There's a lot of tech money flooding into her campaign. Though in this case it's also to replace the current SEC chair, because the SEC chair is actually enforcing securities law against crypto fraudsters, who would really like to keep their scam going.

Same with Trump. Big Tech banned him for, y'know, instigating a coup d'etat. But three years later, Big Tech is now trying to wine and dine him, because the FTC is scaring the shit out of Big Tech. You have Tim Cook going to Trump and Trump saying how he's going to stop the EU from attacking US companies. Hell, Elon Musk bought Twitter just so he could turn it into an arm of the Trump candidacy. And who knows what Mark Zuckerberg thinks. Likewise, with the SEC stuff, Trump used to be a (rightful) big critic of crypto, until he realized he could make money selling tacky NFTs of himself, and is now also trying to get in on that crypto money.

That's a weird take.

These rules and regulations have been in the works for some time, so I don't know where you're getting that.

Uh, it's more like they spent several years working on it and it happens to be an election year when its published.

> [1] The final rule announced today follows an advance notice of proposed rulemaking and a notice of proposed rulemaking announced in November 2022 and June 2023, respectively. The FTC also held an informal hearing on the proposed rule in February 2024.

[1]: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/08/...

Some of the large cases that made hackernews in the past year had a similar comment to yours even though the investigation was started under Trump and only completed recently - if you like the democrats though you will give all credit to the democrats.

Which is to say there is some political differences, but don't make such accusations before you carefully check to ensure it isn't just your bias to observe more when democrats are in power and thus see more.

I wouldn't surprise me if this started while Trump was president, but because of time is just coming out now. It would surprise me if it this started in Obama's first term - but it wouldn't be unreasonable to find out it did.

My comment is literally 3 questions and 0 assertions/accusations.