- Discord, Pinterest, and Quora perform best in new 2025 social media privacy ranking
- Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and X face penalties for poor privacy protections
- AI training policies and regulatory fines shape platform standings in this year’s analysis
Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram have once again been flagged as among the most privacy-invasive social media platforms.
Incogni’s updated Social Media Privacy Ranking report for 2025 placed Meta’s products alongside TikTok at the bottom of its list.
X, the platform owned by divisive billionaire Elon Musk, also scored poorly in several categories, although it performed better than Meta’s services in some areas, positioning it mid-table.
Discord shows how it should be done
Incogni’s researchers evaluated the 15 most widely used social media platforms worldwide, weighing them against 14 privacy criteria grouped into six categories.
These included data collection, transparency, AI data use, regulatory transgressions, user control, and ease of access.
The methodology focused on how easily an ordinary user can understand and act on privacy policies, not only whether the information exists in the first place.
At the other end of the spectrum, Discord, Pinterest, and Quora performed best in this year’s ranking.
Discord topped the list after avoiding many of the pitfalls other platforms faced, especially its stance on not providing user data for training generative AI models.
Pinterest came in second, due mostly to strong user options and relatively few regulatory penalties. Quora took third thanks to limited data collection.
It will likely come as little surprise to most that Meta’s platforms were penalized heavily across all categories.
Facebook stood out for repeated regulatory fines, including multiple violations of GDPR rules in Europe, as well as penalties in the US and other jurisdictions.
Instagram and WhatsApp also contributed to Meta’s low ranking, with policies allowing the collection of sensitive information such as health data and sexual orientation.
X faced penalties for extensive data collection and past privacy-related fines, although it ranked higher than Meta and TikTok in some areas.
It was among the easiest platforms for users to delete accounts from, and its rate of disclosing information to government agencies was lower than most.
Still, its policies allow user data to be used for training AI models, which lowered its overall privacy score.
AI-related concerns had a much larger impact compared to last year.
Reddit, which had previously been considered one of the safer platforms, fell in the ranking after its content was made available to AI developers.
Discord’s avoidance of such practices helped propel it upward.
Transparency was another big factor. Many social platforms lacked clear details on how quickly data is deleted when users close their accounts.
TikTok, Telegram, and Reddit offered limited details, which lowered their scores.
Snapchat was also singled out for disclosing information to government agencies at a higher rate than most competitors.
Ultimately, the report concludes that user privacy remains unevenly handled across platforms. Consent can only be meaningful if information is both available and easy to understand.
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waynewilliams@onmail.com (Wayne Williams)
