The vast majority of Americans — 82% — say that social media sites treat some news organizations differently than others, according to a new survey released by Pew Research on Thursday.
That group also believes social media sites favor news outlets that produce attention-grabbing articles (88%), those with a high number of social media followers (84%) and those whose coverage has a certain political stance (79%).
The survey, conducted July 8-21 among 5,107 U.S. adults who are members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel, also found that social media has become a news source for a majority of Americans for the first time. According to the poll, 55% of American adults get their news from social media often or sometimes, which is up from 47% in 2018.
More American adults consider one-sided and inaccurate news shared on social media to be a “very big problem” than they consider censorship of the news to be a “very big problem.”
About half of those polled said one-sided or inaccurate news falls in the “very big problem” category, while 35% thought censorship was a “very big problem,” which is the same amount who labeled uncivil discussion of the news a “very big problem” on social media, too.
Almost half of social media news consumers — 48% — say they see “liberal” or “very liberal” news posts and just 14% say the news posts they see are “conservative” or “very conservative.” Comparatively, 36% say the news they see is “moderate.”