Facebook may have money and market dominance. But is it beginning to lose in the realm of public opinion?
A recently released poll by Harvard’s Institute of Politics found that Facebook was the least-trusted institution among people in the 18-29 age range — putting it behind the Supreme Court and the police.
The survey of 2,500 young people asked how often respondents trusted major institutions to “do the right thing.” Of these, only 19 percent said they trusted Facebook to do the right thing most of the time. A similar percentage, 21 percent, said the same of fellow social-media company Twitter.
The Free Beacon notes that other institutions scored significantly better in the trust department.
Nearly half of respondents said they trusted the U.S. military to do the right thing “all or most of the time,” while 47 percent said the same of the Supreme Court. Forty-five percent of young people said they trusted the police to do the right thing all or most of the time.
Young Americans’ trust in the Supreme Court and the police cuts against typical media portrayals of the political climate. Efforts to pack the Court or abolish the police are generally presented as popular among young voters. According to the poll, only 22 percent of young people trust the media to do the right thing all or most of the time.
The poll highlights a growing sense of unease with social media platforms. Although young respondents tended to say that social media had a positive impact on their ability to “express their political voice,” they also tended to say it had a negative impact on American democracy and their mental health.
The widespread distrust of social media among young people did not necessarily mean respondents are conservative. In fact, those surveyed expressed support for greater regulation of speech online, with 68 percent of those polled saying social-media platforms should remove misleading claims and a majority (52 percent) believing Twitter’s ban on former president Donald Trump was necessary.
The poll was also notable for highlighting significant levels of depression among young people. Fifty-one percent reported feeling “down, depressed, or hopeless” in the past few days and 68 percent reported “feeling tired or having little energy.” Furthermore, 28 percent said they had thought about hurting themselves in some way during the previous two weeks.
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While those on the Left generally want greater government intervention to require social-media companies to censor certain types of speech (such as “hate speech,” a phrase they generally use to describe right-wing speech), many conservatives are open to the possibility of greater government intervention to prevent social-media platforms from censoring speech.
Social-media firms have particularly targeted right-wing voices with their “fact-checking,” purging, shadow-banning, and demonetizing.
This has prompted users to migrate to alternative platforms more amenable to free speech, such as Gab, Parler, and Telegram.
Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and a public ally of Donald Trump, has even launched his own platform known as Frank, found at FrankSpeech.com. The site is currently experiencing technical roadblocks keeping it from functioning, though visitors can see a livestream and articles.
Lindell announced last week that his company sued Dominion Voting Systems for $1.6 billion because the voting-technology firm has violated his First Amendment-protected rights by slapping him with a $1.3 billion lawsuit over his comments about voter fraud in the 2020 election.
It also doesn’t help the case of the major social-media companies that they have open ties to Communist China.
For example, executives from a number of American tech companies, including Facebook and Google, attended an annual conference held by the Cyberspace Administration of China, which leads the Chinese Communist Party’s digital COVID-19 disinformation campaign.
YouTube, which announced the deletion of videos discussing voter fraud in the 2020 election, employs software engineers linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
One of these engineers is Tai Jinjiang, whose previous work aided the People’s Liberation Army. Another example is Fan Yang, who has worked as a YouTube software engineer since April 2017 and interned for China Telecom, labeled by the U.S. Department of Defense as collaborating with the Chinese military for over two decades.
When Big Tech companies are openly collaborating with a foreign government that is trying to destroy the United States from within, is it any wonder that even young people no longer trust them to do the right thing?
