Reddit, Snapchat ranked as the least intrusive social platform

A new report ranking the top 15 social media platforms found Reddit and Snapchat to be the least intrusive when it comes to their users’ privacy. At the other end of the spectrum are Facebook and LinkedIn.

Ranking performed by data removal services in disguise It was based on 14 criteria across five key categories: infringement, data collection and retention, user control and compliance, transparency and user-friendliness.

“Our researchers have created a comprehensive privacy ranking that reveals significant changes in the data-protection practices of these platforms,” ​​the company wrote in its ranking report.

The three platforms with the best privacy scores were Reddit, with an 8.9 score, Snapchat (9.99), and Pinterest (10.49).

“Reddit and Snapchat allow for greater user anonymity and reduce long-term data exposure,” it explained public valueFounder and CEO of SubRosa, a cyber security services provider

“For example,” he continued, “Reddit allows users to engage without revealing personal information, while Snapchat’s disappearing messages reduce the risk of data retention.”

“These platforms tend to collect less personal information than data-driven networks,” he told TechNewsWorld.

“Reddit allows anonymous accounts and doesn’t require a lot of personal information to sign up,” it added Shayla RanaA professor at Purdue Global, an online public university.

He told TechNewsWorld, “Reddit is more focused on community than building a personal profile.

He also noted that Snapchat not only has invisible messages but also notifies users if someone takes a screenshot of their content and doesn’t have a public news feed like Facebook or LinkedIn. “That reduces the privacy risk,” he said. “It has a more personal use.”

User as product

Mike Machado, CISO’s Beyond TrustA maker of privileged account management and vulnerability management solutions in Carlsbad, Calif., emphasized that the word “attacker” is key to impersonation reporting. “The less aggressive the platforms, the less interested they are in trying to monetize the user as their product,” he told TechNewsWorld.

“The worst offenders are like traps on thinly disguised Pleasure Island, to use a Pinocchio analogy,” he said. “What appears to be a product is to get you to provide information about yourself and use the platform in a way that creates more information about you, with the end goal being to monetize you and the information about you as they are. revenue stream.”

“From their data practices,” he continued, “one can assume that a business like Reddit is more interested in their customer being the person interacting on the platform and less interested in their customer being their advertiser.”

At the bottom of the ranking were Facebook, with a score of 18.98, Facebook Messenger (16.51), and LinkedIn (16.13).

“Facebook, Messenger and LinkedIn collect extensive personal information, including real names, contact information and employment history,” explained SubRosa’s Price. “Facebook’s business model relies on data for targeted advertising, while LinkedIn’s detailed profiles are attractive targets for phishing attacks. This extensive data collection significantly increases user privacy risks.”

BeyondTrust’s Machado added that these risks are increased at the user’s expense, not for any benefit. “Data is well used to benefit their revenue-generating ad customers, but does it benefit the user in any meaningful way?”

In their report, the researchers noted that data collection and retention varies considerably across platforms and contributes significantly to their rankings. This category played a key role in the poor scores of Matera’s products – except for WhatsApp – and pushed Telegram to the top, they explained.

They noted that Instagram and Facebook were found to have the most problematic data collection and retention practices, while Instagram, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, YouTube and Discord retained users’ data the longest after successful account deletion requests.

User control beyond control

Purdue Global’s Rana added that not only do Facebook and LinkedIn collect a lot of data about their users, but they also make it difficult for users to protect their data from the platforms. “Facebook is not very user-friendly in terms of their privacy settings,” he said.

“LinkedIn has really complicated privacy settings that can be difficult for a lot of people to navigate, especially if you look at the wide range of users that are on that platform, from technical to non-technical,” he continued. “Understanding what these privacy settings are can be really complicated.”

He also noted that LinkedIn shares data with third-party recruiters and organizations and collects a lot of professional and personal information. “This makes it prone to having high privacy risks,” he observes.

The undercover researchers also found that the extent to which user control and consent influenced the overall scores of the platforms investigated was inconsistent. This section contains criteria such as what privacy settings are available, what default settings are available, what can be opted out, and the strictest visible set of options such as public display of users’ personal information.

The report noted that Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp (both meta platforms) performed the worst in this category, while Pinterest, Reddit and Twitch did the best.

It also found that LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter) selected the strictest “visibility” settings to publicly display the most user data, and Facebook had the highest number of GDPR, CCPA and similar regulatory violations, with LinkedIn the largest data victim. has been Violation

Can privacy be protected?

For users concerned about their privacy on social media platforms, Megan Celestini, founder of Queen Bee Social, a social media marketing firm in Cape Coral, Fla., offers this advice:

• Before signing up for a platform, read how they will use your information and photos. It is important to know what you are agreeing to.
• Be careful what you post. So many give very sensitive information. An example I often see is children sharing adorable pictures in front of your house with their school and teachers names on their celebration boards. I and strangers now know your address, where your child goes to school, who their teacher is and sometimes who their best friend is.
• Set your profile to private. This approach can help mitigate things from Facebook and Instagram to Meta using your data to train your artificial intelligence models.

However, some people believe that protecting privacy may be a lost cause. “At this point, whatever these platforms want, they’ll get,” declared Gary Flatter, director of celebrity brand and social media. Cronus CommunicationsA public relations firm in Salt Lake City.

“You use your face to unlock your phone. “If you have a new MacBook laptop, you use your fingerprint to log in,” he told TechNewsWorld. “You have information through social media or smartphones.”

“If you’re really worried about privacy,” he said, “delete all your social media accounts and use a flip phone.”