Social media platforms are engaging in “vast surveillance” of people online and failing to protect children, according to a new report fro

FTC Says Social Media Platforms Engage in ‘Vast Surveillance’ of Users

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2024-09-19 20:30:03

Social media platforms are engaging in “vast surveillance” of people online and failing to protect children, according to a new report from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. And if you thought Big Tech was serious about calling for FTC Chair Lina Khan to be fired before, just wait until this report properly trickles through Silicon Valley today.

The FTC issued a warning letter back in late 2020 to nine social media and video streaming services alleging their operations were “dangerously opaque” and said their data collection techniques and algorithms were “shrouded in secrecy.” The companies—Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, X, Snap, ByteDance, Discord, Reddit, and WhatsApp—were told the FTC would be investigating their practices and Thursday’s report is the result of those efforts.

The report notes that the amount of data collected by large tech companies is enormous, even using the words “simply staggering,” to describe how both users and non-users alike can be tracked in myriad ways. And that data that’s collected directly by platforms is then combined with data from third-party brokers to compile an even more detailed picture of any given person, according to the FTC.