According to a recent Washington Post-Schar School poll, 72 percent of Americans don’t trust the left-wing social media giant Facebook with their data and find its targeted advertisements to be annoying and invasive.
Though many Americans admit to using social media heavily, 64 percent say that the government should do more to limit and control big tech giants. The majority say they are skeptical that internet giants will handle their personal info and data in a responsible fashion, and think tech companies don’t provide users with enough control over how they are tracked and monitored when using online platforms.
The survey further noted that Americans also distrust Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Google-owned YouTube, while Google, Microsoft, and Apple received mixed results. Amazon appeared to have a slightly higher trust factor with 53 percent saying that they trusted the company at least “a good amount.”
Only 10 percent of those surveyed believe Facebook has a positive impact on society, while 56 percent say it has a negative impact and 33 percent believe its impact is neither positive nor negative. Around 7 in 10 Americans stated that they believe their mobile devices are listening in on them in ways they didn’t agree to.