Social media users are losing control over how their personal data is harvested and used by artificial intelligence, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission warned.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said in a report released on Thursday that social media corporations gather, distribute, and process enormous amounts of user data without providing little transparency or control, particularly over how it is used by systems using artificial intelligence.
In an investigation, it was found that the user data management and retention policies of a few of the companies, such as Meta Platforms, ByteDance's TikTok, Twitch, an online gaming platform from Amazon, and others, were "woefully inadequate."
The FTC investigation also covered Reddit, Snapchat Discord, YouTube, and social networking site X, albeit its conclusions were anonymised and did not identify the actions of any particular businesses. Alphabet is the owner of YouTube.
According to a representative for X, the report is predicated on procedures from 2020, when the website was still known as Twitter, which X has since refined.
"X takes user data privacy seriously and ensures users are aware of the data they are sharing with the platform and how it is being used, while providing them with the option of limiting the data that is collected from their accounts," the spokesperson said.
The spokesman stated that just 1% of X's present U.S. users are between the ages of 13 and 17.
"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 identity theft to stalking," said FTC Chair Lina Khan.
The businesses the FTC examined gathered information about how customers interact with their services and collected data on users' age, gender, family status, education level, and income.
