Social media companies collect, share and process vast amounts of information about their users while providing little transparency or control, including over how the information is used by artificial intelligence systems, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said in a report published on Thursday.
The report analyzed how Meta Platforms, ByteDance’s TikTok, Amazon’s gaming platform Twitch and other companies manage user data, finding that data management and retention policies at many companies were “grossly inadequate.”
YouTube, social media platform X, Snap, Discord and Reddit were also included in the FTC report, though the findings were anonymized and did not reveal the practices of specific companies. YouTube is owned by Alphabet’s Google.
According to Discord, a communications platform, the report lumps widely varying business models into one category and the platform did not offer advertising at the time the study was conducted.
A spokesperson for X said the report is based on the practices from 2020, when the site was still called Twitter. X has since improved that practice.
“X takes the privacy of user data seriously and ensures that users are aware of the data they share with the platform and how it is used, while also giving them the ability to limit the data collected through their accounts,” the spokesperson said.
According to the spokesperson, only about 1 percent of X’s current users in the US are between the ages of 13 and 17.
Other companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
According to the FTC, social media companies collect data through tracking technologies used in online advertising, purchasing information from data brokers, and other means.
“While these surveillance practices are lucrative for the companies, they can also compromise people’s privacy, jeopardize their freedoms, and expose them to everything from identity theft to stalking,” said FTC Chair Lina Khan.
Data privacy, especially for kids and teens, is a hot topic. The U.S. House of Representatives is considering bills passed by the Senate in July to address the effects of social media on younger users. And Meta recently rolled out teen accounts that include enhanced parental controls.
Meanwhile, Big Tech companies are scrambling to acquire data sources to train their emerging artificial intelligence technologies. The data deals are rarely disclosed and often involve private content locked behind paywalls and login screens, with little or no notice to the users who posted it.
In addition to collecting data on how users interact with their services, most of the companies the FTC reviewed collected users’ age and gender or guessed it based on other information. Some also collected information about users’ income, education and family status, the FTC said.
Companies collected data on people who did not use their services. Some companies also failed to identify all the ways they collected and used data, the FTC said.
Advertising organizations criticized the report on Thursday, saying consumers recognize the value of ad-supported services.
“We are disappointed that the FTC continues to characterize the digital advertising industry as engaged in ‘commercial mass surveillance,’” said David Cohen, managing director of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, an advertising and marketing group that includes Snapchat, TikTok and Amazon.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
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