Public
wants Silicon Valley regulated but Silicon Valley bribes Senators to
halt regulation
A
majority of Americans are now concerned that the government won't do
enough to regulate how U.S. technology companies operate, according
to an Axios-SurveyMonkey poll.
Across the board, concern about government inaction is up
significantly — 15 percentage points — in the past three months.
Why it matters: That's
a seismic shift in the public's perception of Silicon Valley over a
short period of time. It shows how worried Americans are about
Russian meddling in the 2016 election, but it also reflects a
growing anxiety about the potentially addictive nature of some of
the tech companies' products, as well as the relentless spread of
fake news on their platforms.
What's changed: In
a previous Axios-SurveyMonkey poll in November, just after Facebook,
Google and Twitter testified before Congress, only
about four in 10 Americans were concerned
that the government wouldn't do enough to regulate the tech
companies.
Now
that number has jumped to 55%. Notably, 45% of Republicans — who are
usually skeptical about government regulation — share the concern
that government won't do enough. Independents showed the biggest
shift with an increase of 20 percentage points.
There's other
bad news for the tech companies, too:
- More
than eight in 10 — including big majorities across party lines —
blame the technology companies for not doing more to safeguard
their platforms against election interference.
- When
asked whether social media does more to help promote democracy and
free speech or does more to hurt democracy and free speech, most
Americans (55%) now say social media does more to hurt democracy
and free speech than it helps.
The good news: There's
no letup in the widespread public sentiment that technology has had
a positive effect on society. More than seven out of 10 Americans
share that view. And 82% say the success of U.S. tech companies has
been good for the economy.
The big picture: In
response to growing scrutiny in Washington, major tech firms are
leaning heavily on the consistent positive views of the tech
industry. They often tout the fact that consumers love their free,
innovative products that have become staples of every day life.
But
these numbers show that more people are trying to square their
affinity for the companies' services with the downsides that have
become so much more visible in the past year. As those concerns
bubble up to policy makers, regulation of some sort — even in
narrowly tailored areas — seems like less of a long shot than it did
at the end of 2017.
Methodology:
The online survey was conducted by SurveyMonkeyfrom
February 21-23, 2018 among 3,574 adults in the United States. They
were selected from the nearly 3 million people who take surveys on
the SurveyMonkey platform each day. The modeled error estimate for
the full sample is 2.5 percentage points. Crosstabs available here.
Go deeper: Tech
and Congress did themselves no favors in hearings