FTC says social media companies can’t be trusted to regulate themselves

The Federal Trade Commission published a new report astir societal media platforms and video streaming services’ information postulation policies, and the results are damning if not unexpected. The report, which was released connected September 19th, recovered that these platforms not lone surveil consumers but often clasp immense troves of information indefinitely astir users and non-users alike — and suggests they can’t beryllium trusted to modulate themselves.

Given the billions companies basal to gain from collecting and monetizing idiosyncratic data, “self-regulation has been a failure,” the study says. “Predicting, shaping, and monetizing quality behaviour done commercialized surveillance is highly profitable — it’s made these companies immoderate of the astir invaluable connected the satellite — and putting manufacture successful complaint has had predictable results.”

The problem, the study finds, lies not with 1 peculiar company’s concern exemplary but with industry-wide inducement structures that reward harvesting, collecting, and monetizing idiosyncratic data. “While lucrative for the companies, these surveillance practices tin endanger people’s privacy, endanger their freedoms, and exposure them to a big of harms, from [sic] place theft to stalking,” FTC seat Lina Khan said. “Several firms’ nonaccomplishment to adequately support kids and teens online is particularly troubling.”

The study is based connected questions the FTC sent to 9 companies successful December 2020 nether conception 6(b) of the FTC act, which lets the committee behaviour studies without a circumstantial instrumentality enforcement purpose. The orders were sent to Amazon (which owns Twitch), Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, X, Snap, ByteDance (owner of TikTok), Discord, Reddit, and WhatsApp, and focused connected these companies’ data-collection and retention practices, arsenic good arsenic however these practices impact children and teenagers.

Among the findings successful the 129-page study is the information that adjacent radical who don’t usage these platforms had their information collected. The companies acquired user information from a assortment of sources, including advertisers and information brokers, advertizing tracking technology, and inferences from algorithms, information analytics, oregon artificial intelligence. Companies tin clasp this information indefinitely, the study recovered — and immoderate didn’t delete users’ information successful effect to idiosyncratic deletion requests. Instead, immoderate companies de-identified information alternatively than deleting it, portion others would lone delete immoderate data.

The study ends with recommendations to curb these practices, which the papers says are incentivized by the companies’ concern models. The FTC encourages Congress to walk broad privateness authorities to bounds surveillance. In the interim, the committee suggests that companies bounds their ain information postulation policies, halt utilizing “privacy-intensive advertisement tracking technologies,” and instrumentality greater privateness protections for teenagers.