{"id":21545,"date":"2024-09-19T22:18:21","date_gmt":"2024-09-19T22:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=21545"},"modified":"2024-09-19T22:18:22","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T22:18:22","slug":"tech-and-social-media-companies-conduct-vast-surveillance-of-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=21545","title":{"rendered":"Tech and social media companies conduct \u201cvast surveillance\u201d of users"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Social media is all about followers, but the real followers may be the platforms themselves.<\/p>\n

In a report released Thursday, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said top tech and social media companies\u2014Amazon (which owns Twitch), Facebook, YouTube, Twitter\/X, Snap, ByteDance (which owns TikTok), Discord, Reddit, and WhatsApp\u2014\u201cengaged in vast surveillance of consumers in order to monetize their personal information while failing to adequately protect users online, especially children and teens.\u201d Targeted advertising was cited as a main motivator for the platforms\u2019 data collection practices.<\/p>\n

The report, which is the result of an FTC study focused on the nine companies that began in December 2020 found that they collected personal data from users\u2014and non-users in some cases\u2014at a \u201cstaggering\u201d level, and that many of them \u201cfailed to implement adequate safeguards against privacy risks.\u201d In addition to data-sharing, the FTC found that companies were able to \u201cindefinitely retain troves of data,\u201d and that some \u201cdid not delete all user data in response to user data deletion requests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, many users \u201clacked any meaningful control\u201d over how their personal information was being used for AI purposes, the report found.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile lucrative for the companies, these surveillance practices can endanger people\u2019s privacy, threaten their freedoms, and expose them to a host of harms, from identity theft to stalking,\u201d FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a press release announcing the report.<\/p>\n

In the press release, Khan, a fierce critic of Big Tech before she joined the FTC, described some companies\u2019 protection measures around kids and teens \u201cespecially troubling.\u201d According to the report, many children under age 13 remained on platforms despite age restrictions, and teens were often subject to the same data collection practices as adult users.<\/p>\n

Kate Sheerin, head of US and Canada public policy at Discord, told Marketing Brew in an email that the report \u201clumps very different models into one bucket\u201d and suggested that Discord is distinct from the other companies mentioned in the report.<\/p>\n

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Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWe are a real-time communications platform with strong user privacy controls and no feeds for endless scrolling,\u201d she said. \u201cAt the time of the study, Discord did not run a formal digital advertising service, which is a central pillar of the report.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, Jos\u00e9 Casta\u00f1eda, policy communications at Google (which owns YouTube), told Marketing Brew that \u201cwe never sell people\u2019s personal information and we don\u2019t show personalized ads based on sensitive information.\u201d He added that \u201cwe also prohibit ad personalization for users under 18 and we don\u2019t serve personalized ads on \u2018made for kids content\u2019 on YouTube, regardless of who is watching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Snap declined to comment. Amazon, Meta (which owns Facebook and WhatsApp), X, TikTok, and Reddit did not immediately respond to Marketing Brew\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n

What now?<\/strong> The report is the latest scrutiny that Big Tech and social media platforms have faced from state and federal lawmakers amid rising concerns about data privacy and teen safety on social media platforms. Some companies have taken steps that they say protect user privacy and make kids safer on their platforms; earlier this week, Instagram implemented additional restrictions for users under 18.<\/p>\n

TikTok is also facing the threat of a potential federal ban due to its Chinese ownership, with a deadline to sell the app fast approaching.<\/p>\n

The FTC, which noted in the report that companies may be incentivized to collect the most data\u2014often at users\u2019 expense\u2014to \u201cachieve market dominance,\u201d recommended that the federal government pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation to \u201climit surveillance, address baseline protections, and grant consumers data rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also asked companies to, among other things, limit data collection and data-sharing with third parties, cease using ad-tracking technologies, and go beyond the child online safety requirements in COPPA, the Children and Teens\u2019 Online Privacy Protection Act. An updated version, called COPPA 2.0, recently passed the Senate with bipartisan support.<\/p>\n

\u201cCOPPA should be the floor, not the ceiling,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Social media is all about followers, but the real followers may be the platforms themselves. In a report released Thursday, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said top tech and social media companies\u2014Amazon (which owns Twitch), Facebook, YouTube, Twitter\/X, Snap, ByteDance (which owns TikTok), Discord, Reddit, and WhatsApp\u2014\u201cengaged in vast surveillance of consumers in order to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-marketing"},"yoast_head":"\nTech and social media companies conduct \u201cvast surveillance\u201d of users | Brandiary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Social media is all about followers, but the real followers may be the platforms themselves.In a report released Thursday, The Federal Trade Commission\" 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