NewsBeat

10 NewsBeat June 2019 Poll: Americans give social media a clear thumbs-down T he American public holds negative views of social-media giants like Facebook and Twitter, with sizable majorities saying these sites do more to divide the country than unite it and spread falsehoods rather than news, according to results from the latest national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. What's more, six in 10 Americans say they don't trust Facebook at all to protect their personal information, the poll finds. But the public also believes that technology in general has more benefits than drawbacks on the economy, and respondents are split about whether the federal government should break up the largest tech companies like Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook. "Social media — and Facebook, in particular — have some serious issues in this poll," said Micah Roberts, a pollster at the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies, which conducted this survey with the Democratic firm Hart Research Associates. "If America was giving social media a Yelp review, a majority would give it zero stars," Roberts added. According to the poll, 57 percent of Americans say they agree with the statement that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter do more to divide the country, while 35 percent think they do more to bring the nation together. Fifty-five percent believe social media does more to spread lies and falsehoods, versus 31 percent who say it does more to spread news and information. Sixty-one percent think social media does more to spread unfair attacks and rumors against public figures and corporations, compared with 32 percent who say it does more to hold those public figures and corporations accountable. And a whopping 82 percent say social media sites do more to waste people's time, versus 15 percent who say they do more to use Americans' time well. But those numbers also come as nearly seven in 10 Americans — 69 percent — say they use social media at least once a day. The negative attitudes about social media are shared by Democrats, Republicans, men, women, urban residents and rural ones. One variable, however, is age — with younger poll respondents less likely to believe that social media divides the country and spreads unfair attacks and rumors. SIXTY PERCENT DON'T TRUST FACEBOOK TO PROTECT PERSONAL INFORMATION The NBC/WSJ poll also finds Americans are down on Facebook, with 60 percent saying they don't trust the company at all to protect personal information. Just 6 percent say they trust it either "a lot" or "quite a bit." By contrast, the percentage of Americans not trusting companies or institutions with their personal information is lower for Amazon (28 percent), Google (37 percent) and the federal government (35 percent). And by a 74 percent-to-23 percent margin, respondents say that social media companies collecting users' personal data to allow advertisers to target them is not an acceptable tradeoff for free or lower-cost services. Overall, 36 percent of adults view Facebook positively, while 33 percent see it negatively. And Twitter's rating is 24 percent positive, 27 percent negative. "If these were political candidates, it would be one thing," said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates. "But for companies, you'd think these ratings would be [more] on the positive side." By MARK MURRAY A sizable majority say social media does more to divide the country than unite it, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

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