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WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly all Americans agree that the widespread spread of misinformation is a problem.
Many feel that social media companies and the people who use them are largely to blame for the situation. But according to a new survey by the Pearson Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, few are concerned that they may be responsible.
Ninety-five percent of Americans identified misinformation as a problem when trying to access important information. About half largely blame the U.S. government, and nearly three-quarters point to social media users and tech companies. Yet only 2 in 10 Americans say they are personally very concerned about spreading false information.
More – about 6 out of 10 people – are at least concerned that their friends or family members are part of the problem.
For Carmen Speller, a 33-year-old graduate student in Lexington, Kentucky, divisions are evident when discussing the coronavirus pandemic with close family members. Speller relies on COVID-19 vaccines; family does not. He believes the misinformation his family saw on TV or read on dubious news sites influenced their decision to remain unvaccinated against COVID-19.
Some family members even think he’s crazy for relying on the government for information about COVID-19.
“I feel like they believe I’ve been misinformed. I’m the one who blindly follows what the government says, that’s something I hear a lot,” Speller said. “It got to the point where it created a lot of tension with my family and some of my friends as well.”
Speller isn’t the only one having these conflicts with his family.
The poll found that 61% of Republicans say the US government has too much responsibility for spreading misinformation, compared to just 38% of Democrats.
However, there is more bilateral agreement on the role social media companies, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, play in the spread of misinformation.
According to the survey, 79% of Republicans and 73% of Democrats said social media companies were more or somewhat responsible for misinformation.
And this kind of rare partisan agreement among Americans could spell trouble for tech giants like Facebook, the largest and most profitable of social media platforms, which has come under fire from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers.
“The AP-NORC poll is bad news for Facebook,” said Konstantin Sonin, a professor of public policy at the University of Chicago with the Pearson Institute. “It makes it clear that attacking Facebook is popular by a large margin – even when Congress is split 50-50 and both sides have their own reasons.”
During a congressional hearing on Tuesday, senators pledged to hit Facebook with new regulations after a whistleblower testified that the company’s own research showed algorithms were amplifying misinformation and content that harmed children.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said at a meeting of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, “he profited from spreading misinformation and disinformation and sowing hate.” Democrats and Republicans concluded the hearing, agreeing that regulations should be introduced to change the way Facebook expands its content and targets users.
The survey also said that Americans are willing to blame everyone but themselves for spreading misinformation, and 53% are not worried about spreading misinformation.
“We see this a lot of times where people get so worried about misinformation but think it’s something that happens to other people – other people fall for it, other people spread it,” said Lisa Fazio, professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University. How unfounded allegations spread. “Most people are unaware of their role in this.”
Younger adults are more prone to worry because they share lies; 25% of 18- to 29-year-olds are very or extremely concerned about spreading false information, compared to only 14% of adults aged 60 and over. Sixty-three percent of older adults are not anxious, compared to roughly half of other Americans.
Fazio said it’s older adults who should be more concerned about spreading misinformation, given that research has shown that they’re more likely to share an article on a false news website.
Before sharing something with family or friends on Facebook, Speller does her best to make sure the information she shares about important topics like COVID-19 is peer-reviewed or comes from a trusted medical institution. Still, Speller admits that there must have been a time or two where she “likes” or hits the “share” button on a post where she doesn’t quite understand all the facts.
“I’m sure it did,” Speller said. “I tend to post things on social media that I can’t find on verified sites. If someone said, ‘Hey, that’s not true,’ I was open to it, I would think, okay, let me check this out.”
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The AP-NORC survey of 1,071 adults was conducted September 9-13 using a sample from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel designed to represent the US population. The margin of sampling error for all participants is plus or minus 3.9 points.
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