W Index

In September 2024, the Federal Trade Commission released a report summarizing 9 company responses (including from ) to orders made by the agency pursuant to Section 6(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 to provide information user and non-user data collection (including of children and teenagers) and data use by the companies that found that the companies' user and non-user data practices put individuals vulnerable to identity theft , stalking , unlawful discrimination, emotional distress and mental health issues , social stigma, and reputational harm. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]

Widening exposure of member information 2011–2012

In 2010 the Electronic Frontier Foundation identified two personal information aggregation techniques called "connections" and "instant personalization". They demonstrated that anyone could get access to information saved to a profile, even if the information was not intended to be made public. [ 4 ] A "connection" is created when a user clicks a "Like" button for a product or service, either on itself or an external site. treats such relationships as public information, and the user's identity may be displayed on the page of the product or service. [ 4 ]

Instant personalization was a pilot program that shared account information with affiliated sites, such as sharing a user's list of "liked" bands with a music website, so that when the user visits the site, their preferred music plays automatically. The EFF noted that "For users that have not opted out, Instant Personalization is instant data leakage. As soon as you visit the sites in the pilot program (Yelp, Pandora, and Microsoft Docs) the sites can access your name, your picture, your gender, your current location, your list of friends, all the Pages you have Liked—everything classifies as public information. Even if you opt-out of Instant Personalization, there's still data leakage if your friends use Instant Personalization websites—their activities can give away information you, unless you block those applications individually." [ 4 ]

On December 27, 2012 CBS News reported that Randi Zuckerberg , sister of founder Mark Zuckerberg, criticized a friend for being "way uncool" in sharing a private photo of her on Twitter, only to be told that the image had appeared on a friend-of-a-friend's news feed. Commenting on this misunderstanding of 's privacy settings , Eva Galperin of the EFF said "Even Randi Zuckerberg can get it wrong. That's an illustration of how confusing they can be." [ 5 ]

In August 2007 the code used to generate 's and page as visitors browse the site was accidentally made public. [ 6 ] [ 7 ] A configuration problem on a server caused the PHP code to be displayed instead of the web page the code should have created, raising concerns how secure private data on the site was. A visitor to the site copied, published and later removed the code from his web forum, claiming he had been served and threatened with legal notice by . [ 8 ] 's response was quoted by the site that broke the story: [ 9 ]

A small fraction of the code that displays web pages was exposed to a small number of users due to a single misconfigured web server that was fixed immediately. It was not a security breach and did not compromise user data in any way. Because the code that was released powers only user interface, it offers no useful insight into the inner workings of . The reprinting of this code violates several laws and we ask that people not distribute it further.

A small fraction of the code that displays web pages was exposed to a small number of users due to a single misconfigured web server that was fixed immediately. It was not a security breach and did not compromise user data in any way. Because the code that was released powers only user interface, it offers no useful insight into the inner workings of . The reprinting of this code violates several laws and we ask that people not distribute it further.

In November launched Beacon , a system (discontinued in September 2009) [ 10 ] where third-party websites could include a script by on their sites, and use it to send information the actions of users on their site to , prompting serious privacy concerns. Information such as purchases made and games played were published in the user's news feed. An informative notice this action appeared on the third party site and allowed the user to cancel it. The user could also cancel it on . Originally if no action was taken, the information was automatically published. On November 29 this was changed to require confirmation from the user before publishing each story gathered by Beacon.

On December 1 's credibility in regard to the Beacon program was further tested when it was reported that The New York Times "essentially accuses" Mark Zuckerberg of lying to the paper and leaving Coca-Cola , which is reversing course on the program, with a similar impression. [ 11 ] A security engineer at CA, Inc. also claimed in a November 29, 2007, blog post that collected data from affiliate sites even when the consumer opted out and even when not logged into the site. [ 12 ] On November 30, 2007, the CA security blog posted a clarification statement addressing the use of data collected in the Beacon program: [ 13 ]

News feed and mini-feed

On September 5, 2006, introduced two new features called " News Feed " and "Mini-Feed". The first of the new features, News Feed, appears on every member's page , displaying recent activities of the member's friends. The second feature, Mini-Feed, keeps a log of similar events on each member's profile page. [ 14 ] Members can manually delete items from their Mini-Feeds if they wish to do so, and through privacy settings can control what is actually published in their respective Mini-Feeds.

Some members still feel that the ability to opt out of the entire News Feed and Mini-Feed system is necessary, as evidenced by a statement from the Students Against News Feed group, which peaked at over 740,000 members in 2006. [ 15 ] Reacting to users' concerns, developed new privacy features to give users some control over information them that was broadcast by the News Feed. [ 16 ] According to subsequent news articles, members have widely regarded the additional privacy options as an acceptable compromise. [ 17 ]

In May 2010 added privacy controls and streamlined its privacy settings, giving users more ways to manage status updates and other information broadcast to the public News Feed. [ 18 ] Among the new privacy settings is the ability to control who sees each new status update a user posts: Everyone, Friends of Friends, or Friends Only. Users can now hide each status update from specific people as well. [ 19 ]

Inability to voluntarily terminate accounts

Some of these memorial groups have also caused legal issues. Notably, on January 1, 2008, one such memorial group posted the identity of murdered Toronto teenager Stefanie Rengel, whose family had not yet given the Toronto Police Service their consent to release her name to the media, and the identities of her accused killers, in defiance of Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act , which prohibits publishing the names of the under-age accused. [ 27 ] While police and staff attempted to comply with the privacy regulations by deleting such posts, they noted difficulty in effectively policing the individual users who repeatedly republished the deleted information. [ 28 ]

Customization and security

In July 2007 Adrienne Felt, an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, discovered a cross-site scripting (XSS) hole in the Platform that could inject JavaScript into profiles. She used the hole to import custom CSS and demonstrate how the platform could be used to violate privacy rules or create a worm. [ 29 ]

Inadequate privacy controls

offers privacy controls to allow users to choose who can view their posts: only friends, friends and friends of friends, everyone, custom (specific choice of which friends can see posts). While these options exist, there are still methods by which otherwise unauthorized third parties can view a post. For example, posting a picture and marking it as only viewable by friends, but tagging someone else as appearing in that picture, causes the post to be viewable by friends of the tagged person(s). [ 30 ]

Photos taken of people by others can be posted on without the knowledge or consent of people appearing in the image; persons may have multiple photos which feature them on without being aware of it. A study has suggested that a photo of a person which reflects poorly on them posted online can have a more harmful effect than losing a password. [ 31 ]

When commenting on a private post, the commenting user is not informed if the post they commented on is later made public – which would make their on said post also publicly viewable. [ 30 ]

Quit Day was an online event which took place on May 31, 2010 (coinciding with Memorial Day ), in which users stated that they would quit the social network due to privacy concerns. [ 32 ] It was estimated that 2% of users coming from the United States would delete their accounts. [ 33 ] However, only 33,000 (roughly 0.0066% of its roughly 500 million members at the time) users quit the site. [ 34 ] The number one reason for users to quit was privacy concerns (48%), being followed by a general dissatisfaction with (14%), negative aspects regarding friends (13%), and the feeling of getting addicted to (6%). quitters were found to be more concerned privacy, more addicted to the Internet, and more conscientious. [ 35 ]

Photo recognition and face tagging

enabled an automatic facial recognition feature in June 2011, called "Tag Suggestions", a product of a research project named " DeepFace ". [ 36 ] The feature compares newly uploaded photographs to those of the uploader's friends, to suggest photo tags.

National Journal Daily claims " is facing new scrutiny over its decision to automatically turn on a new facial recognition feature aimed at helping users identify their friends in photos". [ 37 ] has defended the feature, saying users can disable it. [ 38 ] introduced the feature on an opt-out basis. [ 39 ] European Union data-protection regulators said they would investigate the feature to see if it violated privacy rules. [ 38 ] [ 40 ] Naomi Lachance stated in a web blog for NPR, All Tech Considered , that 's facial recognition is right 98% of the time compared to the FBI's 85% out of 50 people. However, the accuracy of searches is due to its larger, more diverse photo selection compared to the FBI's closed database. [ 41 ] Mark Zuckerberg showed no worries when speaking 's AIs, saying, "Unsupervised learning is a long-term focus of our AI research team at , and it remains an important challenge for the whole AI research community" and "It will save lives by diagnosing diseases and driving us around more safely. It will enable breakthroughs by helping us find new planets and understand Earth's climate. It will help in areas we haven't even thought of today". [ 42 ]

In May 2016 faced a lawsuit in Illinois for violations of the Biometric Information Privacy Act . [ 43 ] In February 2021, the company settled, agreeing to pay $650 million, and shut down the feature in December 2021. [ 44 ] Following the shutdown, Cher Scarlett , a former Apple security engineer, in January 2022 tweeted a photo that she had been auto-tagged in by someone unknown to her prior to shutdown. The photo was from the 19th century and she said that she learned it was her great-great-great-grandmother of Volga German ancestry, saying the technology was "dangerous" and "off-putting", and pointed to the implication of genocide . [ 45 ]

In September 2024, Meta said it scraped all Australian adult users' public photos and posts on to train its AI without an opt-out option. [ 46 ]

In 2024, agreed to pay $1.4 billion to Texas for capturing facial and biometric data without properly informing users. [ 47 ] [ 48 ] [ 49 ]

Tracking of non-members of

An article published by USA Today in November 2011 claimed that creates logs of pages visited both by its members and by non-members, relying on tracking cookies to keep track of pages visited. [ 50 ]

In early November 2015 was ordered by the Belgian Privacy Commissioner to cease tracking non-users, citing European laws, or risk fines of up to £250,000 per day. [ 51 ] As a result, instead of removing tracking cookies, banned non-users in Belgium from seeing any material on , including publicly posted content, unless they sign in. criticized the ruling, saying that the cookies provided better security. [ 52 ] [ 53 ]

Sharing private messages and contacts' details without consent

In December 2018 it emerged that had, during the period 2010–2018, granted access to users' private messages, address book contents, and private posts, without the users' consent, to more than 150 third parties including Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, Netflix, and Spotify. This had been occurring despite public statements from that it had stopped such sharing years earlier. [ 55 ]

Denial of location privacy, regardless of user settings

In December 2018 it emerged that 's mobile app reveals the user's location to , even if the user does not use the "check in" feature and has configured all relevant settings within the app so as to maximize location privacy. [ 56 ]

Health data from apps sent to without user consent

In February 2019 it emerged that a number of apps, including Flo , had been sending users' health data such as blood pressure and ovulation status to without users' informed consent. [ 57 ] [ 58 ] [ 59 ] [ 60 ] New York governor Andrew Cuomo called the practice an "outrageous abuse of privacy", ordered New York's department of state and department of financial services to investigate, and encouraged federal regulators to step in. [ 61 ] In 2025, a jury found liable for violating the privacy of users of Flo. [ 62 ]

Oculus and metaverse platforms

's acquisition of virtual reality headset manufacturer Oculus has resulted in ongoing concerns over the integration of its hardware and software platforms with user data. After the acquisition, Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey had assured users that "you won't need to log into your account every time you wanna use the Oculus Rift ." [ 63 ] [ 64 ]

The requirements, as well as 's later focus on " metaverse " platforms, have led to concerns over the amount of user data that could be collected by the company via virtual reality hardware and interactions, including the user's surroundings, motions and actions, and biometrics. [ 68 ] [ 69 ] Horizon , a VR social network run as part of the Oculus platform, is subject to policies, performs "rolling" recordings of interactions that could be uploaded to servers for the purposes of moderation if users are reported, and users can be observed by moderators without their knowledge if they are reported by others, or "signals" regarding that user are raised by other users via their own actions (such as muting). [ 70 ]

In September 2020 pulled all Oculus products from the German market due to concerns from local regulators over the policy's compliance with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). [ 71 ] In December 2020, the German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) launched an antitrust investigation into 's mandatory integration of its social networking platform with its virtual reality products. [ 72 ] [ 73 ]

Scraping of information

Personal information of 533 million users, including names, phone numbers, email addresses, and other user profile data, was posted to a hacking forum in April 2021. [ 76 ] This information had been previously leaked through a feature allowing users to find each other by phone number, which fixed to prevent this abuse in September 2019. [ 76 ] The company decided not to notify users of the data breach. [ 76 ] The Irish Data Protection Commission, which has jurisdiction over due to the location of its EU headquarters, then opened an investigation into the breach as a possible violation of GDPR. [ 77 ]

Allegations of eavesdropping

Ads for Threads included girls as young as 13 in uniform with their faces and names visible. Meta told The Guardian the images did not violate its policies. [ 80 ]

's Meta AI App includes a Discover feed "to and explore how others are using AI". [ 81 ] The feature makes public private interactions with the program that users seemingly were not aware would be made public. [ 82 ] [ 83 ]

Platform vulnerabilities

There have been some concerns expressed regarding the use of as a means of surveillance and data mining .

Two Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students used an automated script to download the publicly posted information of over 70,000 profiles from four schools (MIT, NYU , the University of Oklahoma , and Harvard University ) as part of a research project on privacy published on December 14, 2005. [ 84 ] Since then, has bolstered security protection for users, responding: "We've built numerous defenses to combat phishing and malware, including complex automated systems that work behind the scenes to detect and flag accounts that are likely to be compromised (based on anomalous activity like lots of messages sent in a short period of time, or messages with links that are known to be bad)." [ 85 ]

In the United Kingdom the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has encouraged employers to allow their staff to access and other social-networking sites from work, provided they proceed with caution. [ 87 ]

In September 2007 drew criticism after it began allowing engines to index profile pages, though 's privacy settings allow users to turn this off. [ 88 ]

Concerns were also raised on the BBC's Watchdog program in October 2007 when was shown to be an easy way to collect an individual's personal information to facilitate identity theft . [ 89 ] However, there is barely any personal information presented to non-friends – if users leave the privacy controls on their default settings, the only personal information visible to a non-friend is the user's name, gender, profile picture and networks. [ 90 ]

An article in The New York Times in February 2008 pointed out that does not actually provide a mechanism for users to close their accounts, and raised the concern that private user data would remain indefinitely on 's servers. [ 20 ] As of 2013 [ update ]

Onavo and Research

In 2013 acquired Onavo , a developer of mobile utility apps such as Onavo Protect VPN , which is used as part of an "Insights" platform to gauge the use and market of apps. [ 92 ] This data has since been used to influence acquisitions and other business decisions regarding products. [ 93 ] [ 94 ] [ 95 ] Criticism of this practice emerged in 2018, when began to advertise the Onavo Protect VPN within its main app on iOS devices in the United States. Media outlets considered the app to effectively be spyware due to its behavior, adding that the app's listings did not readily disclaim 's ownership of the app and its data collection practices. [ 96 ] [ 97 ] subsequently pulled the iOS version of the app, citing new iOS App Store policies forbidding apps from performing analytics on the usage of other apps on a user's device. [ 98 ] [ 99 ] [ 100 ] [ 101 ]

Since 2016 has also run "Project Atlas"—publicly known as " Research"—a market research program inviting teenagers and young adults between the ages of 13 and 35 to have data such as their app usage, web browsing history , web history, location history , personal messages , photos, videos, emails, and Amazon order history, analyzed by . Participants would receive up to $20 per-month for participating in the program. Research is administered by third-party beta testing services, including Applause, and requires users to install a root certificate on their phone. After a January 2019 report by TechCrunch on Project Atlas, which alleged that bypassed the App Store by using an Apple enterprise program for apps used internally by a company's employees, refuted the article but later announced its discontinuation of the program on iOS. [ 102 ] [ 103 ]

On January 30, 2019 Apple temporarily revoked 's Enterprise Developer Program certificates for one day, which caused all of the company's internal iOS apps to become inoperable. [ 104 ] [ 105 ] [ 106 ] Apple stated that " has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple", and that the certificates were revoked "to protect our users and their data". [ 104 ] US Senators Mark Warner , Richard Blumenthal , and Ed Markey separately criticized Research's targeting of teenagers, and promised to sponsor legislation to regulate market research programs. [ 107 ] [ 108 ]

2010 application privacy breach

In 2010 the Wall Street Journal found that many of 's top-rated apps—including apps from Zynga and Lolapps —were transmitting identifying information to "dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies" like RapLeaf . The apps used an HTTP referer that exposed the user's identity and sometimes their friends' identities. said that "While knowledge of user ID does not permit access to anyone's private information on , we plan to introduce new technical systems that will dramatically limit the sharing of User ID's". A blog post by a member of 's team further stated that "press reports have exaggerated the implications of sharing a user ID", though still acknowledging that some of the apps were passing the ID in a manner that violated 's policies. [ 109 ] [ 110 ]

In 2010 Canadian security consultant Ron Bowes of Skull Security created a BitTorrent download consisting of the names of 100 million users. likened the information to what is listed in a phone book. It included some who had opted not to be found by engines, and some who did not realize their information was public. Bowes created the list to get statistical information user names, which can be used in both penetration testing and computer break-ins . [ 111 ] [ 112 ]

In 2009 and 2010 the fact that was not requiring connections to use HTTPS other than at login meant that a routing glitch at AT&T caused cookie to end up on the wrong users' phones. This resulted in some users having continuous access to another person's account instead of their own. [ 113 ]

and Cambridge Analytica data scandal

In 2018 admitted [ 114 ] [ 115 ] that an app made by Global Science Research and Alexandr Kogan, related to Cambridge Analytica , was able in 2014 [ 116 ] to harvest personal data of up to 87 million users without their consent, by exploiting their friendship connection to the users who sold their data via the app. [ 117 ] Following the revelations of the breach, several public figures, including industrialist Elon Musk and WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton , announced that they were deleting their accounts, using the hashtag "#deletefacebook". [ 118 ] [ 119 ] [ 120 ]

was also criticized for allowing the 2012 Barack Obama presidential campaign to analyze and target select users by providing the campaign with friendship connections of users who signed up for an application. However, users signing up for the application were aware that their data, but not the data of their friends, was going to a political party. [ 121 ] [ 122 ] [ 123 ] [ 124 ] [ 125 ]

Unpublished photo disclosure bug

In September 2018 a software bug meant that photos that had been uploaded to accounts, but that had not been "published" (and which therefore should have remained private between the user and ), were exposed to app developers. [ 126 ] Approximately 6.8 million users and 1500 third-party apps were affected. [ 126 ]

Unencrypted password storage

In March 2019 admitted that it had mistakenly stored "hundreds of millions" of passwords of and Instagram users in plaintext (as opposed to being hashed and salted ) on multiple internal systems accessible only to engineers, dating as far back as 2012. stated that affected users would be notified, but that there was no evidence that this data had been abused or leaked. [ 127 ] [ 128 ]

In April 2019 admitted that its subsidiary Instagram also stored millions of unencrypted passwords. [ 129 ]

has denied for years that it listens to conversations and in turn releases ads based on them, however has been shown to have lied their policies in the past. [ 130 ] In 2016, stated " does not use your phone's microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed." a spokeswoman said, "some recent articles have suggested that we must be listening to people's conversations in order to show them relevant ads. This is not true. We show ads based on people's interests and other profile information, not what you're talking out loud ." [ 131 ]

Cooperation with government requests

Government and local authorities rely on and other social networks to investigate crimes and obtain evidence to help establish a crime, provide location information, establish motives, prove and disprove alibis, and reveal communications. [ 132 ] Federal, state, and local investigations have not been restricted to profiles that are publicly available or willingly provided to the government; has willingly provided information in response to government subpoenas or requests, except with regard to private, unopened inbox messages less than 181 days old, which would require a warrant and a finding of probable cause under federal law under Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). One 2011 article noted that "even when the government lacks reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and the user opts for the strictest privacy controls, users still cannot expect federal law to stop their 'private' content and communications from being used against them". [ 133 ]

The 2013 mass surveillance disclosures identified as a participant in the U.S. National Security Administration 's PRISM program . now reports the number of requests it receives for user information from governments around the world. [ 134 ]

In 2022, Nebraska police charged a teenage girl and her mother after obtaining messages which allegedly showed that they performed an illegal self-managed medication abortion. [ 135 ]

Handling subpoenas seeking activists and journalists

During the 2025 pro-Palestinian student advocacy, student activists were also targeted for subpoenas by Homeland Security Investigations, in which Meta notified the users of. [ 136 ]

In 2026, several subpoenas orders were sent by the DHS to several social media companies, including Meta (for and Instagram). The purpose was to uncover data of several activists who operated accounts expressing dissent against mass deportation. Though companies have the option to decline and be contest the subpoenas if they believe it is unreasonable, Meta complied with the order and notified the users being sought out of this. Several of these subpoenas have already been withdrawn upon legal challenging. [ 137 ]

Complaint from CIPPIC

On May 31, 2008 the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), per Director Phillipa Lawson, filed a 35-page complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner against based on 22 breaches of the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). University of Ottawa law students Lisa Feinberg, Harley Finkelstein , and Jordan Eric Plener, initiated the "minefield of privacy invasion" suit. 's Chris Kelly contradicted the claims, saying that: "We've reviewed the complaint and found it has serious factual errors—most notably its neglect of the fact that almost all data is willingly shared by users." [ 138 ] Assistant Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham released a report of her findings on July 16, 2009. [ 139 ] In it, she found that several of CIPPIC's complaints were well-founded. agreed to comply with some, but not all, of her recommendations. [ 139 ] The Assistant Commissioner found that did not do enough to ensure users granted meaningful consent for the disclosure of personal information to third parties and did not place adequate safeguards to prevent unauthorized access by third-party developers to personal information. [ 139 ]

Investigation by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, 2011–2012

In August 2011 the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) started an investigation after receiving 22 complaints by europe-v- .org, which was founded by a group of Austrian students. [ 140 ] The DPC stated in first reactions that the Irish DPC is legally responsible for privacy on for all users within the European Union [ 141 ] and that he will "investigate the complaints using his full legal powers if necessary". [ 142 ] The complaints were filed in Ireland because all users who are not residents of the United States or Canada have a contract with " Ireland Ltd", located in Dublin , Ireland. Under European law Ireland is the "data controller" for .com, and therefore, .com is governed by European data protection laws. [ 141 ] Ireland Ltd. was established by Inc. to avoid US taxes (see Double Irish arrangement ). [ 143 ]

The group 'europe-v- .org' made access requests at Ireland and received up to 1,222 pages of data per person in 57 data categories that was holding them, [ 144 ] including data that was previously removed by the users. [ 145 ] The group claimed that failed to provide some of the requested data, including "likes", facial recognition data, data third party websites that use "social plugins" visited by users, and information uploaded videos. Currently the group claims that holds at least 84 data categories every user. [ 146 ]

In an interview with the Irish Independent , a spokesperson said that the DPC will "go and audit , go into the premises and go through in great detail every aspect of security". [ 149 ] He continued by saying: "It's a very significant, detailed and intense undertaking that will stretch over four or five days." [ 149 ] In December 2011 the DPC published its first report on , including recommended changes. [ 150 ] The DPC reviewed 's progress in July 2012 and said that most of its recommendations had been implemented. [ 150 ]

International lobbying against privacy protections

In early 2019 it was reported that had spent years lobbying extensively against privacy protection laws around the world, such as GDPR. [ 154 ] [ 155 ]

The lobbying included efforts by Sandberg to "bond" with female European officials including Enda Kenny (then Prime Minister of Ireland , where 's European operations are based), to influence them in 's favor. [ 154 ] Other politicians reportedly lobbied by in relation to privacy protection laws included George Osborne (then Chancellor of the Exchequer ), Pranab Mukherjee (then President of India ), and Michel Barnier . [ 154 ]

In 2021 attempted to use "a legal trick" to bypass GDPR regulations in the European Union by including personal data processing agreement in what they considered to be a "contract" (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR) rather than a "consent" (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR) which would lead to the user effectively granting a very broad permission to process their personal data with most of the GDPR controls void. Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) expressed its preliminary approval for this bypass and sent its draft decision to other data protection authorities in the European Union, at which point the document was leaked to media and published on noyb.eu. [ 156 ] DPC sent a takedown notice to noyb.eu, which was also published by the portal which reject to self-censor. [ 157 ]

Promotion of service as "free"

In December 2019 the Hungarian Competition Authority fined around US$4 million for false advertising , ruling that cannot market itself as a "free" (no cost) service because the use of detailed personal information to deliver targeted advertising constituted a compensation that must be provided to to use the service. [ 158 ]

In 2019, the FTC imposed a $5 billion penalty on . [ 159 ] [ 160 ] [ 161 ]

Student privacy concerns

Students who post illegal or otherwise inappropriate material have faced disciplinary action from their universities, colleges, and schools including expulsion. [ 162 ] Others posting libelous content relating to faculty have also faced disciplinary action. [ 163 ] The Journal of Education for Business states that "a recent study of 200 profiles found that 42% had regarding alcohol, 53% had photos involving alcohol use, 20% had regarding sexual activities, 25% had seminude or sexually provocative photos, and 50% included the use of profanity." [ 164 ] It is inferred that negative or incriminating posts can affect alumni's and potential employers' perception of them. This perception can greatly impact the students' relationships, ability to gain employment, and maintain school enrollment. The desire for social acceptance leads individuals to want to the most intimate details of their personal lives along with illicit drug use and binge drinking. Too often, these portrayals of their daily lives are exaggerated and/or embellished to attract others like minded to them. [ 164 ]

Effect on class engagement

Students in general have a higher engagement when using groups in class, as students can on each other's short writings or videos. [ 165 ] Increased teacher-student and student-student interaction, improved performance, and convenience of learning were some of the benefits of using as an educational instrument. [ 166 ] However, it limits student's writing to be shorter since checking on spelling and typing on a phone keyboard is relatively more time-consuming. [ 165 ]

Effect on higher education

On January 23, 2006 The Chronicle of Higher Education continued an ongoing national debate on social networks with an opinion piece written by Michael Bugeja, director of the Journalism school at Iowa State University , entitled "Facing the ". [ 167 ] Bugeja, author of the Oxford University Press text Interpersonal Divide (2005), quoted representatives of the American Association of University Professors and colleagues in higher education to document the distraction of students using and other social networks during class and at other venues in the wireless campus . Bugeja followed up on January 26, 2007, in The Chronicle with an article titled "Distractions in the Wireless Classroom", [ 168 ] quoting several educators across the country who were banning laptops in the classroom. Similarly, organizations such as the National Association for Campus Activities , [ 169 ] the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication , [ 170 ] and others have hosted seminars and presentations to ramifications of students' use of and other social-networking sites.

The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative has also released a brief pamphlet entitled "7 Things You Should Know " aimed at higher education professionals that "describes what [ ] is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning". [ 171 ]

Some research [ 172 ] [ 173 ] [ 174 ] on in higher education suggests that there may be some small educational benefits associated with student use, including improving engagement which is related to student retention. [ 174 ] 2012 research has found that time spent on is related to involvement in campus activities. [ 173 ] This same study found that certain activities like commenting and creating or RSVPing to events were positively related to student engagement while playing games and checking up on friends was negatively related. Furthermore, using technologies such as to connect with others can help college students be less depressed and cope with feelings of loneliness and homesickness. [ 175 ]

Effect on college student grades

As of February 2012 only four published peer-reviewed studies have examined the relationship between use and grades. [ 172 ] [ 176 ] [ 177 ] [ 178 ] The findings vary considerably. Pasek et al. (2009) [ 178 ] found no relationship between use and grades. Kolek and Saunders (2008) [ 177 ] found no differences in overall grade point average (GPA) between users and non-users of . Kirschner and Karpinski (2010) [ 176 ] found that users reported a lower mean GPA than non-users. Junco's (2012) [ 172 ] study clarifies the discrepancies in these findings. While Junco (2012) [ 172 ] found a negative relationship between time spent on and student GPA in his large sample of college students, the real-world impact of the relationship was negligible. Furthermore, Junco (2012) [ 172 ] found that sharing links and checking up on friends were positively related to GPA while posting status updates was negatively related. In addition to noting the differences in how use was measured among the four studies, Junco (2012) [ 172 ] concludes that the ways in which students use are more important in predicting academic outcomes.

Performative surveillance

Performative surveillance is the notion that people are very much aware that they are being surveilled on websites, like , and use the surveillance as an opportunity to portray themselves in a way that connotes a certain lifestyle—of which, that individual may, or may not, distort how they are perceived in reality. [ 179 ]

Employer-employee privacy issues

In an effort to surveil the personal lives of current, or prospective, employees, some employers have asked employees to disclose their login information. This has resulted in the passing of a bill in New Jersey making it illegal for employers to ask potential or current employees for access to their accounts. [ 180 ] Although the U.S. government has yet to pass a national law protecting prospective employees and their social networking sites, from employers, the fourth amendment of the US constitution can protect prospective employees in specific situations. [ 181 ] [ 182 ] Many companies examine profiles of job candidates looking for reasons to not hire them. Because of this, many employees feel like their online social media rights and privacy are being violated. In addition, employees begin to make performative profiles where they purposefully portray themselves as professional and have desired personality traits. [ 181 ] According to a survey of hiring managers by CareerBuilder.com, the most common deal breakers they found on profiles include references to drinking, poor communication skills, inappropriate photos, and lying skills and/or qualifications. [ 183 ]

Users violating minimum age requirements

Phishing refers to a scam used by criminals to trick people into revealing passwords, credit card information, and other sensitive information. On , phishing attempts occur through message or wall posts from a friend's account that was breached. If the user takes the bait, the phishers gain access to the user's account and send phishing messages to the user's other friends. The point of the post is to get the users to visit a website with viruses and malware. [ 183 ]

E-commerce and drop shipping scams

In April 2016 Buzzfeed published an article exposing drop shippers who were using and Instagram to swindle unsuspecting customers. Located mostly in China, these drop shippers and e-commerce sites would steal copyrighted images from larger retailers and influencers to gain credibility. After luring a customer with a low price for the item, they would then deliver a product that is nothing like what was advertised or deliver no product at all. [ 185 ]

↑ Tolentino, Daysia (September 19, 2024). "Social media companies engaged in 'vast surveillance,' FTC finds, calling status quo 'unacceptable' " . NBC News . Retrieved September 21, 2024 .

↑ Del Valle, Gaby (September 19, 2024). "The FTC says social media companies can't be trusted to regulate themselves" . The Verge . Vox Media . Retrieved September 21, 2024 .

↑ A Look Behind the Screens: Examining the Data Practices of Social Media and Video Streaming Services (PDF) (Report). Federal Trade Commission. 2024 . Retrieved September 21, 2024 .

1 2 3 "A Handy -to-English Translator | Electronic Frontier Foundation" . Eff.org . April 28, 2010 . Retrieved June 11, 2013 .

↑ "Zuckerberg family pic stirs privacy debate" . CBS News. December 27, 2012 . Retrieved June 4, 2012 .

↑ Hoffman, Harrison (August 12, 2007). " 's source code goes public" . CNET News.com.

↑ Richards, Jonathan (August 14, 2007). " Source Code Leaked Onto Internet" . Fox News Channel. Archived from the original on May 29, 2013 . Retrieved August 21, 2007 .

↑ " 's PHP leak SNAFU" . Szinf.com . July 6, 2015. Archived from the original on July 7, 2015 . Retrieved July 6, 2015 .

↑ Cubrilovic, Nik (August 11, 2007). " Source Code Leaked" . TechCrunch.com .

1 2 Ortutay, Barbara (September 21, 2009). " to end Beacon tracking tool in settlement" . USA Today . Retrieved December 8, 2010 .

↑ Henry Blodget (December 1, 2007). "NYT: 's Zuckerberg Misled Us; Coke: Ditto – Silicon Alley Insider" . Alleyinsider.com . Archived from the original on January 31, 2009 . Retrieved June 11, 2013 .

↑ Stefan Berteau (November 29, 2007). " 's Misrepresentation of Beacon's Threat to Privacy: Tracking users who opt out or are not logged in" . CA Security Advisor Research Blog . Archived from the original on December 17, 2007 . Retrieved December 24, 2007 .

↑ Stefan Berteau (November 30, 2007). "Update: A Statement From " . CA Security Advisor Research Blog . Archived from the original on November 28, 2010 . Retrieved December 8, 2010 .

↑ Rosmarin, Rachel (September 5, 2006). " 's Makeover" . Forbes . Archived from the original on October 5, 2006 . Retrieved April 29, 2015 .

↑ " CEO: 'We Really Messed This One Up' " . NBC11.com . September 8, 2006. Archived from the original on January 28, 2007 . Retrieved February 21, 2007 .

↑ Kirkpatrick, David (2010). The Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World . New York City: Simon & Schuster . p. 191. ISBN 978-1-4391-0211-4 .

↑ Jesdanun, Anick (2006). " offers new privacy options" . Associated Press. Archived from the original on December 13, 2010 . Retrieved September 8, 2006 .

↑ "Making Control Simple" . Retrieved December 8, 2010 .

↑ "Controlling How You " . . Retrieved December 8, 2010 .

1 2 Aspan, Maria (February 11, 2008). "How Sticky Is Membership on ? Just Try Breaking Free" . The New York Times . Retrieved September 23, 2014 .

↑ "Net generation grieves with postings" . News Observer . Archived from the original on August 20, 2007 . Retrieved March 5, 2008 .

↑ Batista, Sarah (November 21, 2005). "UVA Student Remembered" . Charlottesville Newsplex. Archived from the original on January 19, 2008 . Retrieved April 10, 2006 .

↑ Bernhard, Stephanie (January 25, 2006). "Community mourns death of Pagan '06" . Brown Daily Herald . Archived from the original on September 29, 2007 . Retrieved April 10, 2006 .

↑ Kelleher, Kristina (February 22, 2007). " profiles become makeshift memorials" . The Brown Daily Herald . Archived from the original on March 21, 2008 . Retrieved March 5, 2008 .

↑ Hortobagyi, Monica (May 8, 2007). "USA Today article" . USA Today . Retrieved April 30, 2010 .

↑ Drudi, Cassandra (January 5, 2008). " proves problematic for police" . The Globe and Mail . Toronto . Retrieved March 5, 2008 .

↑ "Angry Users Illegally Leaked the Names of Accused Underage Murderers" . Digital Journal . January 5, 2008 . Retrieved March 5, 2008 .

↑ "Defacing " . July 27, 2007 . Retrieved August 17, 2007 .

1 2 Günel, Burcu Sayin; Şahi̇n, Serap; Kogias, Dimitris G.; Patrikakis, Charalampos Z. (2019-10-01). "Privacy issues in post dissemination on " . Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences . 27 (5): 3417– 3432. doi : 10.3906/elk-1811-25 . hdl : 11147/9111 . ISSN 1300-0632 .

↑ Vishwanath, Arun; Xu, Weiai; Ngoh, Zed (2018). "How people protect their privacy on : A cost-benefit view" . Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology . 69 (5): 700– 709. doi : 10.1002/asi.23894 . ISSN 2330-1643 . S2CID 13747670 .

↑ Paul, Ian (May 31, 2010). "It's Quit Day, Are You Leaving? – PCWorld" . PC World . Archived from the original on June 1, 2010 . Retrieved May 31, 2010 .

↑ Woollacott, Emma (May 31, 2010). "Quit Day set to be a flop" . TG Daily. Archived from the original on June 2, 2010 . Retrieved May 31, 2010 .

↑ Jemima Kiss (June 1, 2010). " : Did anyone really quit?" . The Guardian . London.

↑ Stieger, Stefan; Burger, Christoph; Bohn, Manuel; Voracek, Martin (2013). "Who Commits Virtual Identity Suicide? Differences in Privacy Concerns, Internet Addiction, and Personality Between Users and Quitters". Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking . 16 (9): 629– 634. doi : 10.1089/cyber.2012.0323 . PMID 23374170 . (subscription required)

↑ " 's facial recognition software is now as accurate as the human brain, but what now? | ExtremeTech" . Extremetech.com . 19 March 2014 . Retrieved June 13, 2014 .

↑ Taking Hits Over Facial Recognition Feature. Washington: Atlantic Media, Inc., 2011. ProQuest. Web. December 6, 2016.

1 2 " facial recognition raises eyebrows in Germany, EU" . Deutsche Welle . Retrieved June 13, 2011 .

↑ Milian, Mark. " lets users opt out of facial recognition" . CNN International. Archived from the original on June 11, 2011 . Retrieved June 13, 2011 .

↑ Gannes, Liz. " facial recognition prompts EU privacy probe" . Cnet News . Retrieved June 13, 2011 .

↑ Lachance, Naomi (18 May 2016). " 's Facial Recognition Software Is Different From The FBI's. Here's Why" . NPR . Retrieved December 16, 2018 .

↑ Computer, Express. "Facebooks' Mark Zuckerberg: 'we should Not be Afraid of AI'." Express Computer (2016) ProQuest. Web. December 6, 2016.

↑ " facing lawsuit over photo tagging" . KGO-TV . 6 May 2016. Archived from the original on 22 February 2022 . Retrieved 21 February 2022 .

↑ Robertson, Adi (2021-11-02). " is shutting down its Face Recognition tagging program" . The Verge . Retrieved 2022-03-29 .

↑ Cords, Sarah (2022-03-16). "Blowing the Whistle on Big Tech" . The Progressive . Retrieved 2022-03-29 .

↑ Evans, Jake (2024-09-10). " admits to scraping every Australian adult user's public photos and posts to train AI, with no opt-out option" . ABC News . Retrieved 2024-09-12 .

↑ Motley, Dante (30 July 2024). "Meta to pay Texas $1.4 billion for using facial recognition technology without users' permission" . The Texas Tribune .

↑ "Attorney General Ken Paxton Secures $1.4 Billion Settlement with Meta Over Its Unauthorized Capture of Personal Biometric Data In Largest Settlement Ever Obtained From An Action Brought By A Single State | Office of the Attorney General" . Texas Attorney General (Press release). July 30, 2024.

↑ Wile, Rob (30 July 2024). "Texas AG wins $1.4B settlement from parent Meta over facial-capture charges" . NBC News .

↑ Achohido, Byron (November 15, 2011). " tracking is under scrutiny" . USA Today . Archived from the original on November 16, 2011 . Retrieved June 18, 2017 .

↑ "Belgian court orders to stop tracking non-members" . The Guardian . November 10, 2015 . Retrieved June 18, 2017 .

↑ Baraniuk, Chris (December 2, 2015). " bows to Belgian privacy ruling over cookies" . BBC News . BBC . Retrieved June 18, 2017 .

↑ Statt, Nick (December 2, 2015). "After privacy ruling, now requires Belgium users to log in to view pages" . The Verge . Retrieved June 18, 2017 .

↑ Anson, Alexander (Nov 12, 2012). " Stalking Statistics 2012" . ansonalex.com . Anson, Alexander . Retrieved Oct 26, 2014 .

↑ Dance, Gabriel J. X.; LaForgia, Michael; Confessore, Nicholas (December 18, 2018). "As Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants" . The New York Times .

↑ Hern, Alex (December 19, 2018). " users cannot avoid location-based ads, investigation finds" . The Guardian .

↑ " reportedly received users' sensitive health data from apps: "It's incredibly dishonest" " . CBS News. 22 February 2019 . Retrieved February 23, 2019 .

↑ Doward, Jamie; Soni, Raj (February 23, 2019). " attacked over app that reveals period dates of its users" . The Guardian . Retrieved February 23, 2019 .

↑ Schechner, Sam; Secada, Mark (February 22, 2019). "You Give Apps Sensitive Personal Information. Then They Tell " . The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved February 23, 2019 .

↑ Statt, Nick (February 22, 2019). "App makers are sharing sensitive personal information with but not telling users" . The Verge . Retrieved February 23, 2019 .

↑ " 'Outrageous abuse of privacy': New York orders inquiry into data use" . The Guardian . Reuters. February 23, 2019 . Retrieved February 23, 2019 .

↑ Greene, Jenna (October 1, 2025). "Meta could owe billions for Flo class action verdict" . Reuters .

↑ Robertson, Adi (August 19, 2020). " is making Oculus' worst feature unavoidable" . The Verge . Archived from the original on August 27, 2020 . Retrieved September 4, 2020 .

↑ "Palmer Luckey on Oculus' deal: "You will not need a account to use or develop for the Rift" " . PCGamesN . 26 March 2014. Archived from the original on August 22, 2020 . Retrieved September 4, 2020 .

↑ Machkovech, Sam (September 15, 2016). " login adds real-name policy, auto-updated friends list to Oculus [ Updated ] " . Ars Technica . Archived from the original on September 9, 2020 . Retrieved September 4, 2020 .

↑ Robertson, Adi (2020-10-15). " is accidentally locking some users out of their new Oculus headsets" . The Verge . Retrieved 2020-10-18 .

1 2 Sam Machkovech. "The Facebookening of Oculus VR becomes more pronounced starting in October" . Ars Technica. Archived from the original on August 18, 2020 . Retrieved August 19, 2020 .

↑ O'Brien, Matt; Chan, Kalvin. "EXPLAINER: What is the metaverse and how will it work?" . ABC News . Associated Press . Retrieved 29 March 2022 .

↑ Lang, Ben (2020-08-28). "In 'Horizon' Can Invisibly Observe Users in Real-time to Spot Rule Violations" . Road to VR . Retrieved 2022-08-04...