Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- An FTC report has accused social media companies of vast user surveillance.
- The report found that major social media platforms are collecting excessive amounts of user data and not doing enough to protect privacy, especially for children.
- The report raises grave concerns about the potential risks to user privacy and safety due to inadequate data protection measures and surveillance practices.
Big tech is watching, and we’ve probably known that in our hearts all along. There’s been enough and more evidence of social media companies mining user data and having inadequate policies around how that data is used. Now, a new staff report by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has accused major social media and video streaming companies of spying on users to the extreme.
The report takes into account data gathering and usage practices from companies like Meta, YouTube, X Corp (formerly Twitter), ByteDance (TikTok), Amazon (owns Twitch), Snap Inc (Snapchat), Discord, Reddit, and WhatsApp. It found that all these platforms are collecting massive amounts of user data and not doing enough to protect user privacy, especially for kids and teens.
“The report lays out how social media and video streaming companies harvest an enormous amount of Americans’ personal data and monetize it to the tune of billions of dollars a year,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan.
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“While lucrative for the companies, these surveillance practices can endanger people’s privacy, threaten their freedoms, and expose them to a host of harms,” she added.
The report further points out that social media companies are capable of collecting and indefinitely retaining troves of user data. These firms have also been found guilty of not deleting user data properly in response to deletion requests.
Most of these companies’ revenue can be attributed to mass data collection, which is used for targeted advertising. The report also suggests that some firms deployed privacy-invasive tracking technologies, such as pixels, to facilitate advertising to users based on preferences and interests.
The report also found that these platforms aren’t doing enough to protect children. Some companies claim they don’t have any kids on their sites, which seems pretty unlikely.
What needs to change?
The FTC is calling for stricter laws and better practices from these companies. It’s a song and dance we’ve heard for many years. It seems things have come to a point where even users have resigned to the fact that they are willingly giving away their personal information and giving up on their online privacy by signing up for social media platforms. Anyhow, the FTC wants to see limits imposed on how much data companies can collect and how long they can keep it, clearer privacy controls for users, and stronger protections for children.
It’s unclear if this report will have any impact on current social media data-gathering practices or not. We’ve seen companies get away with such questionable practices for a while now. At times, regulatory bodies manage to impose monetary fines on tech firms, but we’re yet to see real change come about, especially in the US.
English (US) ·