Surprise: FTC Exposes Massive Surveillance of Kids, Teens by Social Media Giants

The FTC has been investigating Amazon (Twitch), Meta (Facebook), YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, Discord, Reddit and Whatsapp (Meta). The probe began in 2020 investigating their data collection methods, how they track personal and demographic info and the impact of that on kids.

FOUR YEARS into it, the FTC released a report. FTC chair Lina Khan says the report reveals how these companies monetize an “enormous amount of Americans’ personal data” and earn billions of dollars a year at the same time.

Khan said while these practices are very profitable for the companies, they expose kids’ privacy, threaten their freedoms and expose them to harm. And at least some these companies don’t do a great job at protecting the info.

These companies, no surprise, feed data from users and other data that they have or can buy into algorithms and AI and often don’t allow the users to opt out – or even tell them about it.

The platforms don’t protect the kids because – another shocker – there are no children on their platforms, they say. This will likely shock any parent reading this.

Unfortunately, the FTC can do exactly zero about this because Congress doesn’t really care and they like the money they get from big tech, so far be it for them to interfere.

We will see if the next Congress will be a little bit more productive than this one.

Credit: Bleeping Computer

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