Americans have many contradictory views over the government’s moves to regulate Big Tech. The Pew survey says, only 44 percent of Americans want the government to regulate big technology companies. In last year’s survey, 56% of Americans wanted the same. This shows fewer Americans are willing to see government enforcement of tech companies. Also, 20 percent of respondents want less government regulation over the tech industry. This percentage was only nine percent last year.
People in the United States still distrust Big Tech
These figures may raise the suspicion that people trust Big Tech and that Big Tech has been able to increase public confidence in one year. But this statement is not true. In this year’s survey, just like last year, a large percentage of Americans still do not trust big technology companies. Also, they believe online platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, censor political points that the companies find objectionable. As per the survey results, 77 percent of Americans believe that social media platforms will behave this way in 2022. The performance of social platforms in the 2020 US presidential election, could be one of the reasons for the growing distrust of the American people toward those platforms. Political parties also believe that censorship occurs on online platforms, as 92% of Republicans and 66% of Democrats believe so. The Big Tech and social platforms movements have even prompted the Senate to hold hearings to ask CEOs about their content moderation policies. Some people and government officials also believe that social platforms have anti-conservative functions. However, an analysis by Politico shows that conservative media outlets and right-wing media influences are more likely to go viral on social media. Also, social media algorithms are likely to amplify conservatives’ content.
