On Thursday, Sept. 19, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a new report based on a recent 4-year study. In short, this FTC report found that all the big social media platforms are engaged in “vast surveillance” of users.
This FTC study investigated how these social media platforms collected and arguably misused user data. Per the report, these companies created detailed user profiles and used this data to curate targeted advertising and turn a profit.
“Surveillance practices can endanger people’s privacy, threaten their freedoms, and expose them to a host of harms, from identify theft to stalking,” Lina Kahn, the FTC chair, said in a statement to the New York Times.
What else did the FTC social media investigation find?
This FTC investigation began in December 2020. It focused on nine companies across 13 platforms. Companies investigated include social media platforms Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, Discord, Snapchat, Reddit, and X. However, company-specific findings were not disclosed.
Furthermore, the study showed that these companies obtained data from non-users via data brokers. Through this, they obtained sensitive information like income and education.
The report also highlighted that, despite age restrictions, many users under the age of 13 remained on these social media platforms. Even more concerningly, the FTC added that these users were often treated as adults on the platforms and were subjected to the same data collection methods.
The report concluded by saying that “self-regulation has been a failure” for these social media companies, so we can only assume that the FTC will be keeping a much closer eye on them from now on.
Further reading:
- The Federal Trade Commission Takes On Viewbotting and Fake Reviews in the US
- Everything Creators Need to Know About FTC Guidelines and Influencer Marketing
- The Stealth Advertising Crackdown: The FTC Warns Creators to ‘Read Carefully’
- Five Things Creators Might Miss In The FTC’s Endorsement Guidelines
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