More than three out of four conservatives say that they do not trust Facebook to treat all of its users equally, according to a new poll, which adds that more than half of respondents also said they hold the same views regarding Google, YouTube, and Twitter. The poll was released amid growing controversy surrounding the Masters of the Universe involving censorship of conservatives.
Nearly 77 percent of conservatives do not trust Facebook, according to a recent poll conducted by McLaughlin and Associates, which asked conservatives questions about their opinions regarding Big Tech companies, such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Twitter, according to a report by News Busters.
The poll found that 76.7 percent of conservative respondents do not trust Facebook to treat all of its users equally, adding that the majority of the overall respondents — 63.4 percent — had also admitted to finding Facebook untrustworthy with regards to treating all of its users equally.
Facebook had recently announced that it will be cracking down on “misinformation” ahead of the 2020 election. While this may sound reasonable at face value, many are concerned that due to Big Tech’s ever-increasingly subjective definitions of simple terms, that these companies may actually be seeking to censor certain opinions under the guise of stopping misinformation.
The poll results for Google were telling as well, with 62.9 percent of conservative respondents saying they do not believe the company treats users equally, while nearly half of the respondents polled in general — 47.9 percent — agreed that Google is untrustworthy.
The poll results are understandable, given that last month, undercover videos and leaked documents published by Project Veritas revealed that Google is determined to stop President Donald Trump’s re-election. Additionally, the leaked documents showed employees referring to prominent conservative figures — such as Jordan Peterson and Dennis Prager — as “Nazis.”
Google-owned YouTube had nearly the same results as its search engine parent, with 60.6 percent of conservatives polled saying they do not trust YouTube to treat all of its users equally, while 48.7 percent of individuals polled altogether agreed that they do not find YouTube trustworthy with regards to equal treatment of its users.
Moreover, YouTube has also fallen under public scrutiny over its apparent mistreatment of conservatives. Last month, the video-sharing platform responded to calls from leftists to ban conservative commentator Steven Crowder by demonetizing his account.
Dennis Prager’s PragerU channel also alleges having been subjected to numerous instances of unfair treatment on the platform, which has resulted in multiple lawsuits.
Twitter reportedly faced similar criticism via the poll results as well, with 63.2 percent of conservatives saying they do not trust the social media platform to treat its users equally.
As for how to respond to the apparent unfair treatment perpetrated by Big Tech companies, 38.8 percent of conservatives polled said they would like to see Facebook, Google, and Amazon regulated and split up into smaller companies.
According to the video footage published by Project Veritas last month, Google executive Jen Gennai expressed her concern over the notion that Google should be broken up into smaller companies, stating that having smaller companies would make it more difficult for Google to prevent “the next Trump situation.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler at @alana, and on Instagram.
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