One-Third of Americans Believe Tech Companies Have a Negative Effect on the Country
A Pew Research survey found Americans’ view that technology companies positively impact the country has declined over the past four years.
According to the survey published on July 29, 50 percent of Americans “say technology companies have a positive effect on the way things are going in the country,” down from 71 percent who responded as such in 2015.
On the other end of the scale, the percentage of Americans who believe technology companies have a negative impact on the country has increased from 17 percent in 2015 to 33 percent.
Americans have become much less positive about tech companies’ impact on the U.S. https://t.co/l7OXEZBnS7 pic.twitter.com/4CiFpT5CtQ
— Pew Research Fact Tank (@FactTank) July 29, 2019
This negative trend is true for both political parties, although Democrats are 10 percent more likely (54 percent) to say that technology companies have a positive effect on the country.
Additionally, 64 percent of Americans said the national news media has a negative impact on the United States, while only 25 percent said the media has a positive impact.
This pattern seems to follow previous observations by the Pew Research Center on Americans’ views on technology and social media companies.
A study published in 2018 found 55 percent of Americans think tech companies “have too much power and influence,” and 72 percent think it is “likely that social media companies censor political views they find objectional.”
The power of social media companies was recently brought to national attention when a former Google employee said that the big tech company was planning to “ramp up the censorship” so President Donald Trump wouldn’t be reelected in 2020.
Kevin Cernekee told “Fox & Friends” that Google has “a huge amount of information on every voter in the U.S.” and the company uses the information to create “psychological profiles and figure out how to change your mind.”
These studies line up with a Morning Consult poll that was published after Trump’s social media summit on July 11.
Although 42 percent of registered voters said that the Trump administration should make curbing political bias in social media companies a priority, 43 percent said that the companies should be responsible for creating policies on how political content can be shared.
Trump addressed the alleged social media bias at his summit on the topic.
“I’m directing my administration to explore all regulatory and legislative solutions to protect free speech and the free-speech rights of all Americans,” he said.
“We hope to see transparency, more accountability, and more freedom. That’s on both sides.”
He added, “Big tech must not censor the voices of the American people.”
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