USA TODAY International Edition
Advocacy group: Probe Facebook policies on teens
Common Sense Media says data were shared with device makers
Teenagers may have been disproportionately harmed by Facebook policies that led to a political ad targeting firm obtaining 87 million Facebook users’ personal information without their consent, a nonprofit advocacy group for kids and families asserts.
Common Sense Media says recent media reports that the social networking giant allowed device makers – including Apple, Amazon, BlackBerry, Microsoft and Samsung – to scrape data of Facebook users’ friends without their explicit consent makes addressing the matter more urgent.
On Monday, Common Sense filed a new complaint with the Federal Trade Com- mission asking commission- ers to investigate how Face- book has handled user information and privacy preferences when it comes to teens, especially in the way it may have shared that information with device makers.
Facebook last week admitted to data partnerships with the device makers but has countered that the agreements were solely to help the companies create Facebook-like ex- periences on their phones and oper- ating systems.
Still, some lawmakers have ques- tioned whether Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg misled Congress during his April testimony on how the United Kingdom’s Cambridge Analytica had obtained access to a huge trove of Facebook user data for political targeting purposes.
Common Sense is also asking the FTC to keep young people in mind as it considers possible violations of a 2011 consent decree – and any penalties that may result.
Teens are particularly vulnerable because of their use of third-party apps, such as games, the group says.
“The sharing of information with device makers is yet another reason why the Commission should pay special attention to how Facebook’s mishandling of user information impacted teens, with respect to Cambridge Analytica, Huawei and a growing number of third parties,” Common Sense CEO James Steyer wrote in the FTC letter. “Moreover, that this sharing was not disclosed during multiple Congressional hearings, but rather unearthed by reporters, underscores how much of
what Facebook does continues to be extremely opaque.”
In a statement to USA TODAY, Facebook’s deputy chief privacy officer Rob Sherman said, “We remain strongly committed to protecting people’s information. We are committed to making the significant investments necessary to keep people safe on our platform.”
In May, two months after Facebook acknowledged Cambridge Analytica had improperly obtained Facebook users’ personal information, Common Sense teamed with SurveyMonkey on an online poll to determine how teens and their parents viewed privacy and data sharing.
USA TODAY got an exclusive early look at the poll, conducted May 5 to May 22, among a national sample of 19,063 adults, roughly a third of whom are parents with children between 13 and 17. There were 985 teens in the same age range who also participated in the survey.
Most parents and teens had heard of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica controversy, and parents were much more likely to be cautious about social media as a result. Some 63 percent of parents said they would be more cautious about using social media, while only 38 percent of teens said the same.
More than 9 in 10 parents and teens think it’s at least “moderately” important that sites clearly label what data they collect and how it will be used, though the youngsters were less likely to say it is “extremely” important compared to their parents.
But 69 percent of teens and 77 percent of parents did indicate it is “extremely important” for sites to ask permission before selling or sharing their personal information.
Parents and children differed among their level of concern surrounding ad-targeting by social media sites.
Eighty-two percent of parents indicated they are at least “moderately” worried about such practices, with 35 percent saying they are “extremely” worried. By contrast, 68 percent of teens are at least “moderately” worried about ad-targeting, and only 14 percent “extremely” worried.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Congress in April that regulation of Facebook and other internet companies is “inevitable.”