FTC report exposes massive data collection by social media brands - how to protect yourself

A US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report published today follows the commission's four-year investigation into how nine social media companies and streaming services collect and use consumer data. As it turns out, the data collection scheme is a lot bigger than initially thought.

If you're interested, you can read the entire 129-page report on the FTC's website, but here's a quick rundown. The agency first began looking into the shady business practices of the world's biggest online platforms back in 2020. This list included  Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, X (then Twitter), Snap, ByteDance, Discord, Reddit, and WhatsApp."

Also: Instagram makes 'Teen Accounts' private by default - and AI will be checking your age

According to the FCC's findings, these brands gobbled up as much as they could from both "users and non-users," going so far as to purchase information from data brokers. The New York Times, in its coverage, noted that these companies collected details like a person's age, gender, education, and income.

Not all platforms offer people a way to opt out of automated data collection and the ones that do offer that option don't make it easy. Even if you manage to opt out and request data deletion, the FTC states that social media companies retain "sensitive information much longer than consumers would expect".

When it comes to minors, things aren't much better. The report points out that "many companies assert that there are no children on their platforms" as the services they provide are not meant for kids. Apparently, the report notes, that was all lip service to "avoid liability" as brands "often treated teens the same as adult users."

As the FTC's report recommends key changes that policymakers can enact to protect people's privacy, we can expect to see laws enacted to fill the security gaps. But who knows when that will happen.

Also: The best secure browsers for privacy: Expert tested

Fortunately, there are plenty of things you can do to protect yourself from data-hungry brands. We suggest familiarizing yourself with a platform's privacy settings. Adjust these settings to limit the amount of data a website can collect like turning off location sharing and opting out of personalized ads. 

Also, you could consider signing up for alternate social platforms with stricter privacy policies.  For example, Mastodon is similar to X although with a greater focus on privacy. And we suggest installing protective browser extensions. Our favorite is Privacy Badger which prevents third-party ad trackers across the internet from collecting data on you.