No Overwhelming Support for More Online Regulation, Poll Finds
April 16 2018 - 5:45PM
Dow Jones News
By Janet Hook
Congress has held high-profile hearings on Facebook and is
debating new regulation of social media companies, but a Wall
Street Journal/NBC News poll finds that Americans have only a
limited appetite for new government oversight of social media
companies.
Some 37% of people in the new survey said social media platforms
such as Facebook and Twitter are not regulated enough, while the
same share said the sites have the right amount of government
regulation, and 14% said there was too much regulation.
The poll underscored the broad reach of four major technology
companies -- Alphabet's Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon -- and
their role in Americans' lives. Almost 90% in the survey said they
used at least one of the companies' services or products. Nearly
half used three or more.
In a sign of how Amazon has come to dominate America's retail
shopping, 46% said they were members of Amazon Prime, which is an
online shopping service that gives customers free, expedited
shipping for an annual fee.
Facebook has been criticized for months because of the role its
platform played in spreading disinformation during the 2016
presidential campaign and for allowing information about its users
to be mined and used for political purposes.
The poll found Republicans were the least likely to support more
government oversight of social media companies such as Facebook and
Twitter: 29% of Republicans said there was not enough regulation of
social media, compared with 46% of Democrats and 36% of
independents.
In the survey, 37% of adults thought Facebook had too much
influence in their lives, 35% said it had the right amount of
influence, and 7% said it had too little influence.
Of the major companies mentioned in the survey, Google was most
widely used: 70% said they used Google searches daily. Almost two
thirds said they owned at least one Apple product. Half said they
checked Facebook every day, slightly more than the 46% who were
Amazon Prime members.
Forty-nine percent used at least three of the four companies'
sites or services.
Not surprisingly, millennials and well-off people were more
likely to use multiple digital outlets: 31% of people age 18-34
used products from all four of the big tech companies, as did 30%
of self-described upper-class people.
Seniors were most likely to be outsiders to the digital world:
34% of people age 65 and older used none of the four on a regular
basis.
The poll found that comparatively few people use Twitter,
President Donald Trump's favorite social media outlet for
communicating. Some 9% checked Twitter daily.
The Journal/NBC News poll was conducted April 8-11 and included
900 adults. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.27 percentage
points.
Write to Janet Hook at janet.hook@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 16, 2018 17:30 ET (21:30 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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