Social networks have too much political influence, Americans tell researchers

More than three-quarters of American adults—78%, up from 72% four years ago—think social media companies have too much power and influence in politics, the latest Pew Research study shows.

Break it down by political affiliation, and the research gets really interesting. Those leaning Republican have a longer track record of thinking social media companies have too much political influence, with 82% saying as much in 2020, and 84% in February of this year. But the numbers have really shot up for those leaning Democrat—74% this year, up from 63% four years ago.

Pew doesn’t get into reasons here, but I can hazard a couple guesses. Firstly, the latest survey came in the context of the Israel-Gaza war, in which Meta in particular has been accused of censoring pro-Palestinian views. Secondly and perhaps more obviously, Elon Musk. The tycoon took over Twitter with a promise to rectify what he saw as a leftist bias, then went on to regularly amplify right-wing—and in some cases far-right—voices, creating a situation where X (as it is now called) feels biased in that direction. Many left-ish users have since decamped to rival platforms like Threads and Bluesky.

Perhaps there's even been some impact here from the furor around TikTok and its alleged use by Beijing to influence U.S. opinion—traditionally Republicans have been more hawkish on China, but the outrage has become very much bipartisan in recent months.

Pew's research suggests that people generally see social media as a malign phenomenon in 2024—64% of respondents said it had a mostly negative effect on U.S. politics, with just 10% opting for mostly positive.

Those are the same overall figures as in 2020, but again, break it down by affiliation and it’s clear that Democrats are now markedly more likely to see the negative side of social media (59% up from 53%) but Republicans are actually decreasingly likely to see it (71% down from 78%,) even though a whopping 93% of Republican respondents believe social media companies are probably censoring political views that the companies disagree with. (A relatively mild 74% of Dems share this belief, though that’s considerably up from 66% in 2020.)

I’m interested to know your thoughts on these findings—drop me an email—but my read is that there’s a political realignment taking place on U.S. social media, with left-leaning users now less happy with the situation than they were several years ago. Not that either side is particularly thrilled with how things are panning out, mind you.

More news below, and do check out my colleague Alexandra Sternlicht’s latest piece on the TikTok national-security controversy—TikTok’s claims about keeping Americans’ data out of Beijing’s hands are looking decidedly shaky. And do also keep an eye out for Amazon’s results later today, which should make it clearer how profitable—or not—the generative AI boom is proving at this early stage.

David Meyer

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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com