Carroll Doherty

Americans have become much less positive about tech companies’ impact on the US

Four years ago, technology companies were widely seen as having a positive impact on the United States. But the share of Americans who hold this view has tumbled 21 percentage points since then, from 71% to 50%. Negative views of technology companies’ impact on the country have nearly doubled during this period, from 17% to 33%, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Nearly one-in-five (18%) now volunteer their impact has been neither positive nor negative or that it is mixed, or they offer no opinion.

Public Highly Critical of State of Political Discourse in the US

Large majorities say the tone and nature of political debate in the US has become more negative in recent years – as well as less respectful, less fact-based and less substantive. One takeaway: By a wide margin (66% to 32%), more people say social media companies have a responsibility to remove offensive content from their platforms than say they do not have this responsibility. But just 31% have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in these companies to determine what offensive content should be removed.