POLL: Majority of Americans Want to Trust-Bust Big Tech

Last Updated on September 25, 2019

According to a poll conducted by YouGov, a majority of Americans from across the political spectrum are in favour of breaking up the Big Tech companies.

The poll was produced for Vox, who last week released the results of the various questions they had asked the 1,280 respondents. Almost 70% of all Americans are in favour of breaking up Big Tech companies if they are ranking their content based on their ownership. Vox gives the example of Amazon pushing its own AmazonBasics line of suitcases if you were trying to find a suitcase to buy on their site. Almost two-thirds of all Americans are also in favour of breaking up recent mergers, such as that of Facebook and Instagram.

While there are majorities for cracking down on Big Tech across all political affiliations, there is clearly more support for it on the further ends of the political spectrum. 56% of “very liberal” and 47% of “very conservative” responders saying they strongly support breaking up Big Tech companies that prioritise their own content, as opposed to 43% of “liberal,” 32% of “conservative” and 34% of “indendpent/other” responders who only “somewhat support” it. Moderates and people who are unsure of their opinion show the lowest support.

Earlier this month, all 50 State Attorneys General announced they were opening an investigation into the monopolistic behaviour of the Big Tech organisations. Ken Paxton, the Texas State Attorney General who is leading the investigation into Google, told a press conference why they had opened the investigations:

While many consumers believe that the internet is free, certainly we know from Google’s profits of $117 billion that the internet is not free. This is a company that dominates all sorts of advertising on the internet, and searching on the internet… This is an investigation to determine the facts… the facts will lead to where the facts will lead.

Last month, the DC Court of Appeals said it will hear the suit put together by conservative activist Laura Loomer and Freedom Watch against Big Tech. The suit alleges that by co-operating to ban Loomer and others, the companies are breaking the First Amendment, the Sherman Act (designed to prevent monopolies), and DC’s public accomodation law.