Social media companies, video streaming services engage in "vast surveillance" of users, FTC says
CBSN
Large social media companies and streaming platforms — including Amazon, Alphabet-owned YouTube, Meta's Facebook and TikTok — engage in a "vast surveillance of users" to profit off their personal information, endangering privacy and failing to adequately protect children, the Federal Trade Commission said Thursday.
In a 129-page report, the agency examined how some of the world's biggest tech players collect, use and sell people's data, as well as the impact on children and teenagers. The findings highlight how the companies compile and store troves of info on both users and non-users, with some failing to comply with deletion requests, the FTC said.
"The report lays out how social media and video streaming companies harvest an enormous amount of Americans' personal data and monetize it to the tune of billions of dollars a year," FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement. "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."
The "uncommitted" movement, a group of pro-Palestinian, anti-war Democrats who led the push to cast protest votes against President Biden during the primaries, declined to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for the White House, but also said they would not encourage supporters to stay home or vote for third-party candidates.
A longtime CIA officer who drugged, photographed and sexually assaulted more than two dozen women in postings around the world was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison Wednesday after an emotional hearing in which victims described being deceived by a man who appeared kind, educated and part of an agency "that is supposed to protect the world from evil."
A second judge refused to grant bail to Sean "Diddy" Combs on Wednesday and he could remain in federal custody at a Brooklyn detention center until his trial for sex trafficking charges. Combs joins other high-profile inmates, such as singer R. Kelly, fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, rapper Ja Rule —even Al Sharpton served a brief stint— who were held at the same federal detention center.