Major social media and video streaming platforms are engaged in mass data collection and surveillance, putting people’s privacy at risk to generate billions of dollars in profit, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said on Sept. 19.
The report was based on responses to orders issued in December 2020 to nine companies: Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter (now X), Snap, ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company), Discord, Reddit, and WhatsApp.
The orders sought information on how the companies collect, track, and use personal and demographic data, as well as how they determine which ads and content are shown to consumers.
FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said that the report outlines how social media and video streaming companies collect the personal data of Americans and monetize personal data “to the tune of billions of dollars a year.”
The FTC found that the companies’ data collection, minimization, and retention practices were “woefully inadequate” and that some companies failed to delete all data when asked to by users.
It stated that the business models of the companies mostly centered on the mass collection of user data for monetization, particularly through targeted ads, which account for most of their revenue.
The companies collected information input by users, information gathered passively, and inferred information. Some companies obtained data from data brokers, which included details about household income, location, and interests.
“Because the advertising ecosystem is complex and occurs beneath the surface, it is challenging for users to decipher how the information collected from and about them is used for ad targeting—in fact, many users may not be aware of this at all,” the report states.
The FTC also found that aside from one exception, the companies did not appear to offer users or non-users a choice to opt out of having their data used in algorithms, data analytics, or artificial intelligence.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the companies for comment.
Kate Sheerin, head of U.S. and Canada public policy at Discord, told The Epoch Times in an email that although she recognizes that the report’s focus on consumers is important, it “lumps very different models into one bucket and paints a broad brush, which might confuse consumers and portray some platforms, like Discord, inaccurately.”
“Discord’s business model is very different—we are a real-time communications platform with strong user privacy controls and no feeds for endless scrolling,“ Sheerin said. ”At the time of the study, Discord did not run a formal digital advertising service, which is a central pillar of the report.”
An X spokesperson told The Epoch Times that the FTC report was based on practices from 2020, when the platform was still known as Twitter. Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 and rebranded it to X.
The spokesperson stated that currently, only about 1 percent of X’s users in the United States are between the ages of 13 and 17.
Protecting Children
Most companies said their platforms were not designed for children and that they did not knowingly collect any data from children.“Yet we know that children are using SMVSSs [social media and video streaming services]. The SMVSSs should not ignore this reality,” the FTC stated.
Most of the companies allowed teenagers on their platforms without placing any restrictions on their accounts and collected their personal data the same way they collected adult users’ data, the report stated.
In its recommendations, the FTC called for “comprehensive federal privacy legislation” to limit surveillance, address baseline protections, and grant consumers data rights. It also urged the companies to make more efforts to protect consumer privacy and limit data collection.
Murthy said that a warning label, which requires congressional approval, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proven safe. He said evidence has shown that similar labels on tobacco products have raised awareness and changed behavior.
