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Should false information on social media be regulated?

To examine this question, I first established a baseline of knowledge when it comes to U.S. citizens news following and social media use, as well as how the two are connected. I then looked into how much people trust information on social media, whether or not they have a positive or negative view towards it and why, and if it has ever shifted their viewpoint. To finish my examination, I looked into the different types of potential regulation.

Datasets:

For my data, I relied primarily on Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel. This panel is a regular, random sample of approximately 10,000 adults across the United States. In particular, I took information from wave 70, which took place in July 2020 and wave 112 which took place from July to august 2022. Please see below for the full citations.

American Trends Panel Wave 70 : American Trends Panel Wave 70 Archives. (2020, July). Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/dataset/american-trends-panel-wave-70/

American Trends Panel Wave 112: American Trends Panel Wave 112 Archives. (2022, August). Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/dataset/american-trends-panel-wave-112/

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How Often Do You Follow the News?

These first two visualizations examine how often survey respondents follow the news. The bar graph orders the categories in order of how often people follow the news, separated by age category. As we can see the majority of respondents do follow the news all or most of the time, with those 65+ more likely to do so. The dumbbell plot is separated by political party affiliation. As we can see, all parties are likely to follow the news all or most of the time, however Democratic members follow the news more closely than other parties overall. These charts establish our survey respondents as people who do follow the news and could provide answers of value about it.

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How Often Do You Get News From Social Media?

These next two visualizations establish how often respondents got news from social media, such as Facebook or Twitter. Again, this barchart is ordered by frequency, with the highest level being on the far right. As we can see, it appears the majority of people only get news sometimes. The older age groups are less likely to get news from social media often, while the 30-49 age group gets it the most. Overall the 18-29 category is rather low, but that might be due to them being less likely to take an interest or answer the survey this data is pulled from, as this age category was rather low on the other graph as well. The dumbbell plot shows us that the majority of political party members are also only getting news sometimes. Democrats are more likely to get news from social media either often or sometimes, while Republicans are more likely to never do so.

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How Much of What You See on Social Media is Related to Politics?

These two visualizations establish a baseline for how much of what respondents saw on social media was related to politics. As you can tell from the bar graph, regardless of age most respondents are seeing a lot of political information on social media. When it comes to the dumbbell bar split by political affiliation, it appears that again most respondents are seeing a lot. Democrats are more likely to be seeing high amounts of political information on social media than both their Independent and Republican counterparts.

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What Effect Would You Say Social Media Has on the Way Things are Going in This Country?

This simple visualization establishes whether or not respondents believe social media has a positive or negative effect on the way things are going in this country. This serves as a way to gauge how survey respondents feel toward social media in general and whether or not there may be some bias in their responses. The majority of survey respondents do find the effect of social media to be negative.

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What are the Main Reasons You Think Social Media Has a Positive or Negative Effect on the Country?

These tree map visualizations provide further detail on the visualization the page before. Survey respondents were asked why they view social media as having a positive or negative effect. As we can see from the visualizations, top negative reasons include extremism and misinformation. Other reasons tied to false information on social media include “people believing everything”, “clickbait”, “echo chambers”, etc. When it comes to positive reasons, the top ones are “helping people stay informed” and “communication”. Further positive reasons include “access to news” and “activism”. These tree maps show just how at odd respondents’ views of social media can be, as it appears they view it as a tool for information and a detriment to it.

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What is the main reason you think social media has a mostly negative effect on the way things are going in this country?

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How Much Do You Trust the Information You Get from Social Media Sites?

This next bar graph is on how much respondents are likely to trust information they see on social media, split out by party. As we can see the majority of people do not trust the social media information much at all, which indicates a general belief that false information may be believed to be rampant. Of note, Democrats are more likely to trust the information than independents or republicans.

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Have You Changed Your Views About a Political or Social Issue Because of Something You Saw on Social Media? (see attached animation)

This visualization covers if people have ever switched their views on a political or social issue because of something they saw on social media. The graph travels from 2018 to 2020, with more people saying they have changed their opinion in 2020. I think this implies that while people may not always trust information they see on social media, it does still have an increasing impact on their political viewpoints.

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Should the U.S. Government or Technology Companies Take Steps to Restrict/Regulate False Information Online (including on social media sites)?

These two visualizations provide a comparison across potential regulatory moves for false information on social media, highlighting the differences and similarities between government versus technology company regulation. Looking across the graphs, it seems that the actual support doesn’t change based on who the regulator is. In general, democrats are more likely to favor regulation than republicans.

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Conclusions

While the data was contradicting at some points, I do believe some trends were uncovered. It appears that even though the majority of people have a distrust of information on social media, they are increasingly likely to change their political views based off what they see on those sites. The reasons people list social media as a positive or negative are very at odds, with reasons for both stances tied to political and social information on the sites. It also appears that the general public cares less about who would regulate false information on social media and more about if it’s even regulated at all. The stances of respondents did not seem to change based on the regulator. As for general trends, the older age group follows the news more closely, but the 30-49 year old age group is most likely to get information from social media. Republicans seem to trust the information less but also remain opposed to regulation. Democrats trust the information more but favor regulation.