A new privacy report identifies the top 15 social media platforms, with Reddit and Snapchat as the least vulnerable to user attacks. At the other end of this spectrum are Meta Facebook, Messenger and Instagram products.
The ranking of Incogni’s data removal service is based on 14 criteria in five main areas: breach, data collection and retention, control and efficiency user, clarity and ease of use (Snapchat Ranked).
The company wrote in its assessment report: “Our researchers have created a comprehensive privacy assessment that shows significant changes in the data protection practices of these platforms.
The three platforms with the best privacy scores are Reddit (8.9), Snapchat (9.99) and Pinterest (10.49).
“Reddit and Snapchat allow for greater user anonymity and minimize long-term data exposure,” explained John Price, founder and CEO of SubRosa, a cybersecurity services provider.
“For example,” he continued, “Reddit lets users engage without revealing personal information, while Snapchat’s disappearing messages reduce the risk of data being retained.”
“These platforms also tend to collect less personal information compared to data-driven networks,” he told TechNewsWorld.
“Reddit allows anonymous accounts, and they don’t require a lot of personal information for sign-up,” added Shaila Rana, a professor at Purdue Global, an online public university.
“Reddit is more focused on communities than building a personal profile,” she told TechNewsWorld.
She also pointed out that Snapchat not only has disappearing messages but also notifies users if someone takes a screenshot of their content and doesn’t have public news feeds like Facebook or LinkedIn. “That’s what lowers its privacy risks,” she said. “It has more private usage.”
User as Product
Mike Machado, CISO of BeyondTrust, a maker of privileged account management and vulnerability management solutions in Carlsbad, Calif., asserted that the word “invasive” is key to Incogni’s report. “The less invasive platforms are, the less interested they are at trying to monetize the user as their product,” he told TechNewsWorld.
“The worst offenders are like thinly disguised pleasure island traps, to use a Pinocchio analogy,” he said. “What appears to be the product is just a lure to get you to provide information about yourself and use the platform in ways that generate more information about yourself, with the end goal being for that business to monetize you and information about you as their real revenue stream.”
“From their data practices,” he continued, “one might surmise that a business like Reddit is more interested in their customer being the person who is communicating on the platform and less interested in their customer being their advertisers.”
