By Burt Glass
The U.S. government should not regulate social media platforms, but the platform owners should remove, hide or limit traffic to posts with unverified information, according to Americans responding to a new Media & Technology Survey from Boston University’s College of Communication, out today.
A strong plurality (46%) disagreed or strongly disagreed with the U.S. government regulating social media platforms, compared to only 28% who agreed or strongly agreed. Respondents expressed more agreement with the removal (63%) or minimizing (57%) of unverified information by the platforms themselves.
These results reflect both the public’s skepticism of governmental overreach and support for private solutions to countering misinformation, according to Chris Chao Su, an assistant professor of emerging media studies at Boston University’s College of Communication who designed the survey.