A Whopping 82% of Americans Believe Social Media Companies Favor Certain News Organization Over Others
A woman checks the Facebook Inc. site on her smartphone whilst standing against an illuminated wall bearing the Facebook Inc. logo in this arranged photograph in London, U.K., on Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2015. Facebook Inc.s WhatsApp messaging service, with more than 100 million local users, is the most-used app in Brazil, according to an Ibope poll published on Dec. 15. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A new study has found that the majority of Americans, from both parties, believe social media companies have too much power in controlling the news they see on their feeds — and that they are heavily biased.
The new data from Pew Research revealed that a massive 75% of Republicans and 53% of Democrats believe these Big Tech companies have too much control over what news articles are visible to users.
Additionally, a large majority of Americans believe that social media companies are biased and favor certain types of news organizations. “About eight-in-ten U.S. adults (82%) say social media sites treat some news organizations differently than others, about five times the share saying all news organizations are treated the same (16%),” Pew reports.
Overall, 62% of Americans hold this view, while 55% believe that the companies’ efforts to filter news result in a worse mix of news for users.
“Almost all Americans – about nine-in-ten (88%) – recognize that social media companies have at least some control over the mix of news people see. And most Americans feel this is a problem: About six-in-ten (62%) say social media companies have too much control over the mix of news that people see on their sites, roughly four times as many as say that they don’t have enough control (15%). Just 21% say that social media companies have the right amount of control over the news people see,” Pew reports.
The findings are based on a survey conducted July 8-21, 2019, among 5,107 U.S. adults who are members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel.
The Gateway Pundit is completely shadowbanned by Facebook today. During the election 30% of our traffic was from Facebook. After we were discovered to be a top influencer in 2016 Facebook shut our traffic down to a trickle. This is a frequent story for Trump supporters today.
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