A new poll has found that most people don’t trust social media companies to do the right thing when it comes to posting content on their respective platforms.
A poll by Gallup and the Knight Foundation found that most Americans do not trust social media companies to make the right decisions about what should be allowed on their platforms. However, the same poll also found that people trust the government even less to make those choices.
The debate over online content moderation, already in the spotlight during the COVID-19 pandemic and lead up to the U.S. election, has intensified in recent weeks as Twitter and Facebook diverged on how to handle inflammatory posts by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans favor letting people express their views on social media, including views that are offensive. However, 85% of respondents favored removing intentionally false or misleading health information and 81% supported removing intentionally misleading claims about elections or other political issues.
Respondents were critical of companies doing too little to police harmful content. Seventy-one percent of Democrats and 54% of independents thought companies were not tough enough, whereas Republicans were more divided on the question.
Eight in 10 respondents said they do not trust social media companies to make the right decisions on content. However, most people preferred companies making these rules over the government. Respondents tended to prefer the idea of having independent content oversight boards to govern policies, with 81% saying such boards were a good idea.
Facebook has said that it is setting up an oversight board, which will hear a small number of content cases and can make policy recommendations.
