Seven in ten say firms did a poor job handling the spread of misinformation during the past week
Social media companies have come in for significant criticism in the last week, after misinformation falsely suggesting the Southport murderer was a Muslim immigrant spread across networks, contributing to incidents of disorder across the country – many of which themselves were organised on social media.
Some individuals have already been arrested for content they have posted, but home secretary Yvette Cooper has said that social media companies need to take responsibility for amplifying misinformation and encouragement of violence.
Now a new YouGov survey shows that the British public agrees, with two thirds of Britons (66%) saying that social media companies should be held responsible for posts inciting criminal behaviour during the recent unrest.
Only one in five Britons (20%) say social media companies should not be held responsible for content made by users. Reform UK voters in particular are more likely to say social media firms shouldn’t be considered responsible for users’ posts, at 41% compared to 11-15% of Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem voters.
There is also a significant age divide, with the youngest Britons substantially more likely to say think firms are not responsible for the posts of users, at 33% of 18-24 year olds compared to 12% of the over-65s.
While social media firms have been acting to varying degrees to counter harmful content, the large majority of Britons (71%) say the companies did a bad job at tackling misinformation during the unrest, including 46% who think they did a “very bad” job. Just 9% think they did a good job.
While a majority of people across all voting and social groups agree that the social media companies handled the crisis poorly, Reform UK voters are again the least likely to do so, at 56% - almost a quarter believe they handled the situation well (23%).
Social media firms aren’t regulated enough, say Britons
Given these complaints, it is no surprise to see that the large majority of Britons believe that social media firms are not regulated strongly enough. Seven in ten people say so (70%), including 39% who think there is “much too little” regulation of the tech firms.
Only 14% of Britons think social media firms are regulated to the right degree, while a further 7% think that companies are regulated too much.
Traditional media firms have also come in for their share of blame in the wake of the riots. Indeed, while 86% of Britons felt that social media had a great deal or fair amount of responsibility for the recent unrest, so too did 69% of the public when it came to the news media.
While many Britons also tend to think that media companies are not regulated enough, a much more sizeable portion disagree. Close to half of people (46%) think that print media companies are not regulated strongly enough, but 34% think they are appropriately regulated and 7% say they are regulated too tightly.
Likewise, four in ten Britons think broadcast media firms are insufficiently regulated (42%), but almost as many think the level of regulation is about right (39%), and 9% go further and say the requirements are too strict.
Reform UK voters again hold distinct views on the regulation of social media firms, being twice as likely to think either that social firms are regulated the right amount (26%) or are too restrictively regulated (17%). While this is distinct from other voters, it is worth noting that these figures are consistent with Reform voters’ attitudes to how far traditional media firms should be regulated.
How do you feel about the social media companies' reaction to the riots, the riots themselves, and everything else? Have your say, join the YouGov panel, and get paid to share your thoughts. Sign up here.
Photo: Getty
