Finally, there is one thing that everyone can agree on: big tech companies like Facebook and Google are too powerful.
A poll by the Pew Research Center found that 78% of American adults think social media companies have too much power over politics. Of those polled, 84% were Republicans and 74% were Democrats. In general, this point of view has grown 6% more common since the last election.
The way Americans feel about social media is similar to how their lawmakers feel. Recently, attempts to hold social media companies accountable have been some of the few political issues that have gotten a lot of support from both parties. Some senators, like Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), have been working together across party lines on the Kids Online Safety Act. This is a plan that would require social media sites to take care of kids’ safety. But some people who care about privacy have said that the plan could make adults more open to government surveillance.
At the same time, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have joined forces in a very unusual way to propose a bill that would set up a committee to watch over big tech platforms.
“It would be worse if Elizabeth Warren worked with me on a bill than if she worked with me on a bill,” Graham said at a January Senate hearing.
It’s easy to see why people in the U.S. think tech companies have too much political power: since the 2020 poll, social media sites were used to plan an attack on the Capitol, and then a president was banned from those sites for encouraging the attacks. Also, President Biden just signed a bill that could ban TikTok for good because the government is so worried about how much power it has.
But Americans who are conservative and those who are liberal have different ideas about how biased tech companies are. 71% of Republicans polled said that big tech companies support liberal views more than conservative ones. On the other hand, 50% of Democrats said that tech companies support both sets of views evenly. Overall, only 15% of people said that tech companies back conservatives more than liberals.
It makes sense that these poll results came up now that there are more social networks that are very conservative, like Rumble, Parler, and Trump’s own Truth Social app.
Government groups like the FTC and DOJ have been tougher on tech companies while Biden was president. Amazon, Apple, and Meta, three of the biggest companies in the country, have been sued for unfair behavior. But Pew’s poll shows that only 16% of people in the U.S. believe tech companies should have less government oversight than they do now. This number has gone up since 2021, when Pew found it to be 9%.
When it comes to tech policy, liberals and conservatives may not always agree, but this poll makes one thing clear: Americans are sick of how much power big tech companies have over them.
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