4 Leadership Skills That Helped Jensen Huang Build Nvidia Into a $2 Trillion Company
After a 26-Year-Old Baltimore Founder Was Killed, Her Company Managed to Endure--and Grow
With AI, It's Trickier to Find the Right Tech Talent
Tensions Are Rising Over Israel-Hamas War. But How Should Employers Respond?
Tesla's Full Self Driving Tech Poised to Accelerate in China Amid Sales Slump
How This Buzzy Startup Turned the Shower Head Into a Status Symbol
Bird Flies Again From Bankruptcy With a New, Regulator-Friendly Strategy
In the land of free speech, where social media influencers and "creator marketing" hold massive currency in the attention economy, you'd think that democratizing channels of public opinion (with a lowercase "d") would be a good thing. Given the amount of time and money they command, it would be easy to think social media companies were met with broad approval. Americans disagree in increasingly higher numbers, and new research shows they think that Big Tech and social media, may have just too much influence.
Nonpartisan opinion pollster Pew Research recently released results from its new survey of American opinion on technology companies, compiling data from over 10,000 respondents. The biggest takeaway? Compared to 2020's results, more people think that social media companies have too much political influence: 78 percent of Americans surveyed said so, up from 72 percent in 2020. Unsurprisingly, there's a political differentiation here. While Republican distrust of social media has ticked up from 82 percent to 84 percent over that period, Democrat disapproval has risen from 63 percent to 74 percent.
Distrust of social media is also growing, and most people think social media sites actively censor politics they disagree with. 83 percent of those surveyed think so, up from 77 percent in 2022, with a predictable blue-red opinion split: 93 of Republican-leaning respondents think it's very likely or somewhat likely that censorship happens, while just 74 percent of Democrat-leaning respondents agree.
Marrying up with this distrust, 51 percent of people surveyed think Big Tech companies should be more regulated than they are now--though that figure hasn't changed dramatically since 2018, suggesting a stable opinion of Big Tech regulation, despite obvious dramatic shifts in policy like the TikTok ban, antitrust allegations levied by the FTC at some of the bigger tech brands, EU fines and forced changes to Apple's app ecosystem and more. While only 9 percent of people in 2018 favored less regulation of Big Tech, 16 percent hold that opinion now, suggesting the beginnings of a quiet groundswell of support in favor of less regulation of Big Tech.
Pew's data was released at the same time that Meta, Facebook and Instagram's parent company, revealed that its lobbying efforts to influence decisions in the U.S. government in the first quarter of 2024 represent its biggest spend ever. In its public lobbying spending documentation released last week, Meta said it had spent a record $7.6 million on lobbying efforts in early 2024. That's a rise of 64 percent from the figure spent on lobbying in the last quarter of 2023 tech website The Verge notes. Meta explained that some of this increase was due to structural changes in how it pays lobbyists, but The Verge points out that Meta's lobbying spend is, nonetheless, over double what Apple, Google and Microsoft spent on lobbying in early 2024.
Parallel to the multipronged lobbying effort, Pew's data shows that the American public is increasingly distrustful of the truthfulness and impartiality around Big Tech's service operations. The survey results could be critical reading for any company planning on leveraging the creator economy with an upcoming social media promotional campaign.
Treading too close to a political line in your messaging right now may not go down well with the public, who are already voicing their distrust of the very digital platforms you may be using to try to spread your company's message.
Now accepting applications for Inc.’s Best Workplace awards. Apply by February 16 for your chance to be featured!
Sign up for our weekly roundup on the latest in tech
Privacy Policy
Americans Worry About Social Media's Growing Power
16
3
01.05.2024
4 Leadership Skills That Helped Jensen Huang Build Nvidia Into a $2 Trillion Company
After a 26-Year-Old Baltimore Founder Was Killed, Her Company Managed to Endure--and Grow
With AI, It's Trickier to Find the Right Tech Talent
Tensions Are Rising Over Israel-Hamas War. But How Should Employers Respond?
Tesla's Full Self Driving Tech Poised to Accelerate in China Amid Sales Slump
How This Buzzy Startup Turned the Shower Head Into a Status Symbol
Bird Flies Again From Bankruptcy With a New, Regulator-Friendly Strategy
In the land of free speech, where social media influencers and "creator marketing" hold massive currency in the attention economy, you'd think that democratizing channels of public opinion (with a lowercase "d") would be a good thing. Given the amount of time and money they command, it would be easy to think social media companies were met with broad approval. Americans disagree in increasingly higher numbers, and new research shows they think........
© Inc.com
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Mort Laitner
Tarik Cyril Amar
Rami G Khouri
Bradley Blankenship
