Examining the Data Practices of Social Media and Video Streaming Services, September 2024. In December 2020, the Federal Trade Commission issued 6(b) Orders to nine of the largest social media and video streaming services—Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Snap, ByteDance, Discord, Reddit, and WhatsApp (“Companies”). At the time, a bipartisan group of Commissioners issued a joint statement warning that far too much about how these platforms operate is “dangerously opaque,” with critical questions around data collection and algorithms “shrouded in secrecy.” “It is alarming,” the statement notes, “that we still know so little about companies that know so much about us.” Today, the Commission is approving the release of a groundbreaking report that sheds light on how these powerful Companies have operated. It shows how the tech industry’s monetization of personal data has created a market for commercial. surveillance, especially via social media and video streaming services, with inadequate guardrails to protect consumers. The report finds that these Companies engaged in mass data collection of their users and – in some cases – non-users. It reveals that many Companies failed to implement adequate safeguards against privacy risks. It sheds light on how Companies used our personal data, from serving hyper-granular targeted advertisements to powering algorithms that shape the content we see, often with the goal of keeping us hooked on using the service. And it finds that these practices pose unique risks to children and teens, with the Companies having done little to respond effectively to the documented concerns that policymakers, psychologists, and parents have expressed over young people’s physical and mental well being. Staff’s report includes detailed analysis of each of these issues and more, and it offers. recommendations on how to address these risks. In my view, this report – and the process of putting it. together – should point policymakers to three key takeaways. The Status Quo Is Unacceptable: The amount of data collected by large tech companies is simply staggering. They track what we read, what websites we visit, whether we are married and have children, our educational level and income bracket, our location, our purchasing habits, our personal interests, and in some cases even our health conditions and religious faith. They track what we do on and off their platforms, often combining their own information with enormous data sets purchased through the largely unregulated consumer data market. And large firms are increasingly relying on hidden pixels and similar technologies – embedded on other websites – to track our behavior down to each click. In fact, the Companies collected so much data that in response to the Commission’s questions, they often could not even identify all the data points they collected or all of the third parties
they shared that data with…”