Social media companies engaged in 'vast surveillance,' FTC finds, calling status quo 'unacceptable' (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 13 hours ago by gytrash@feddit.uk to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Popular social media platforms and video streaming services pose serious risks to user privacy, with children and teenagers most at risk, the Federal Trade Commission found in a report published Thursday.

The report, which stretches more than 100 pages, details the data, advertising and recommendation-system efforts by these companies, and how they rely on information about users to sell ads. Users also “lacked any meaningful control over how personal information was used for AI-fueled systems” on the companies’ platforms, according to the report.

“While lucrative for the companies, these surveillance practices can endanger people’s privacy, threaten their freedoms, and expose them to a host of harms, from identify theft to stalking,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a press release...

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[-] kbal@fedia.io 13 points 11 hours ago

What they need to do: Ban the practice of showing ads to people based on surveillance data, for a start.

What they will do: Demand that more data be collected to determine which users are children and therefore worthy of protection.

[-] kamenlady@lemmy.world 13 points 12 hours ago

Criminals with enough money just buy the data.

this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024

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