No Overwhelming Support for More Online Regulation, Poll Finds

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 [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 16, 2018 17:30 ET (21:30 GMT)

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