Most Americans favor restrictions on false information, violent content online
Most Americans say the U.S. government and technology companies should each take steps to restrict false information and extremely violent content online.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Most Americans say the U.S. government and technology companies should each take steps to restrict false information and extremely violent content online.
48% of US adults say the government should restrict false information online, even if it means losing some freedom to access/publish content.
While 38% of U.S. adults say they have heard of Parler, just 1% of Americans regularly get news there.
In recent years, several new options have emerged in the social media universe, many of which explicitly present themselves as alternatives to more established social media platforms. Free speech ideals and heated political themes prevail on these sites, which draw praise from their users and skepticism from other Americans.
Most Americans (71%) have heard of a conspiracy theory that alleges that powerful people intentionally planned the coronavirus outbreak.
Americans’ confidence in checking COVID-19 information aligns closely with their confidence in checking the accuracy of news stories broadly.
U.S. adults in this group are less likely to get the facts right about COVID-19 and politics and more likely to hear some unproven claims.
Here are five facts about how much Americans have heard about the QAnon conspiracy theories and their views about them.
Partisans differ on whether social media companies’ decisions had a major impact on the election.
Despite the spread of the conspiracy theories, about three-quarters of U.S. adults say they have heard or read nothing at all about them.
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