Sixty-two percent of Americans consider it inappropriate for government agencies to be involved in censoring content and individuals on social media platforms, according to a recent Counterpolling survey.
WHY IT MATTERS– Recent revelations from Twitter highlight how government agencies were in regular contact with the social media company regarding content moderation.
- The new Republican Congress has pledged to hold investigations into censorship of conservative views online.
IS PUBLIC DISCLOSURE A SOLUTION? – The survey, conducted by RMG Research, asked if individuals would be in favor of a proposal that would require public disclosure of all government efforts to censor content or individuals on social media.
- 39 percent said “strongly favor”
- 31 percent said “somewhat favor”
- 11 percent said “somewhat oppose”
- 8 percent said “strongly oppose”
- 11 percent said “not sure”
DOES CENSORSHIP HAVE A PARTY LINE? – Democrats and Republicans are more likely to agree than disagree about government involvement in censoring social media content.
- Seventy-six percent of Republicans and 47 percent of Democrats think it is inappropriate for government agencies to be involved in censoring content and individuals on social media.
- Democrats and Republicans are even more agreeable on the proposal to require public disclosure of all government efforts to censor content or individuals on social media.
- Eighty-one percent of Republicans and 66 percent of Democrats favor a proposal requiring public disclosure of all government efforts to censor content on social media.
BOTTOM LINE – Americans are critical of the government censoring online speech and want full disclosure if agencies are involved in doing so.
GO DEEPER –
CBS News– Twitter Files: What they are and why they matter
The Hill –‘Twitter Files’ fuel House GOP probes, censorship claims
This Counterpolling™ survey of 1,000 Registered Voters was conducted online by Scott Rasmussen on January 10-12, 2023. Field work for the survey was conducted by RMG Research, Inc. Certain quotas were applied, and the sample was lightly weighted by geography, gender, age, race, education, internet usage, and political party to reasonably reflect the nation’s population of Registered Voters. Other variables were reviewed to ensure that the final sample is representative of that population. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is +/- 3.1 percentage points.