Majority of Americans distrust social media companies on content decisions: Poll

A new poll released on Tuesday (June 16) by Gallup and the Knight Foundation has found that most Americans distrust social media companies to make the right decisions about the kind of content that should be allowed on their platforms. But majority of the Americans trust the government even less to take decisions in this regard.

The debate over online content moderation has taken centrestage in the US due to coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak and run-up to the U.S. election. Social media giants Twitter and Facebook intensified the debate by diverging on how to handle inflammatory posts by President Donald Trump.

The poll revealed that around two-thirds of Americans favor want the social media platforms to allow people express their views, including views that are offensive.
Around 85% of respondents were in favour of removing intentionally false or misleading health information and 81% supported removing intentionally misleading claims about political issues and upcoming presidential election.

Respondents also criticised companies for doing too little than too much in policing harmful content. Seventy-one percent of Democrats and 54% of independents thought companies were not taking tough measures, whereas the opinions among Republicans were more divided.

Around 80% of respondents said they do not trust big tech companies to make the right decisions on content. Most, however, said that private companies should be allowed to make these rules over the government but majority of Democrats said that the government should set content limits or guidance.