Left & Right Agree on Big Tech Overreach

Across the political spectrum, Americans agree big tech overreach is a problem.

Across the political spectrum, Americans agree big tech overreach is a problem.

A December 2021 poll from Axios and the Illinois Institute of Technology found:
- 81% of Americans think the government should be doing more to protect privacy
- 78% think they are being targeted by online advertisers
- 75% think big tech companies are too big (80% of liberals and 83% of conservatives)
- 71% think there should be public oversight of algorithms
A May 2022 Schoen-Cooperman Research poll found 79% of Americans are concerned Big Tech has too much power over the news and 78% believe they manipulate these industries for their gain.
According to a Pew Research poll from May, a plurality (44%) of Americans support increased regulation of big tech companies and 77% believe social media companies are censoring political viewpoints they dislike.
However, a July 2022 AXIS Research poll found 70% of voters oppose new antitrust regulations for technology companies proposed by the “American Innovation and Choice Online Act.”
Americans agree big tech companies are too powerful. What Americans think our government should do about it is much less clear.

The Washington Post chronicled Republicans’ “war against Google over spam.” The G.O.P. blamed Gmail’s spam filter for hurting Republican fundraising efforts, and the search giant appears to be backing down under intense Republican criticism.
Slate assessed how “’Big Tech’” means something different to each side. For Democrats, the phrase signals unfair competition cemented by the influence and stature of a handful of technology companies. For Gaetz and his allies, the “big tech” concept is far more insidious: It refers to a thought-controlling group of corporations that interfere with the free speech of conservative voters and unfairly influence elections against Republican candidates.
The Intercept shed light on PimEyes, “the Google of facial recognition.” The facial recognition search engine “allows anyone to search for images of children scraped from across the internet, raising a host of alarming possible uses.”

Reason broke down the AXIS Research poll on big tech regulation. The poll found that 80 percent of respondents agreed that “consumers benefit most when the government creates an environment where companies can freely compete” and respondents were most supportive of regulations that protected consumer welfare and keeps prices low.
Breitbart analyzed a Media Research Center study that found 144 million instances of big tech censorship in just the first three months of 2022 across seven Big Tech platforms. They calculated the “secondhand censorship effect” to look at the number of instances where “users on social media had information kept from them.”
FOX News interviewed one mom who “is suing Meta after her daughter developed anorexia from using the social media platform Instagram.” Candace Wuest is trying to shed light on “how Instagram algorithms can hurt young girl’s self-esteem and in some cases, lead to physical harm.”

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