Gallup-Knight survey of 1,203 US adults: 85% don't think tech platforms do enough to combat fake news; 88% want more transparency about how content is surfaced
but not offensive or biased content. That's the opposite of what platforms are doing. pic.twitter.com/xdyjW8WzNA Melissa Ryan / @melissaryan : Some interesting toplines here. https://www.poynter.org/... Bobby Blanchard / @bobbycblanchard : Journalists regularly weigh in on what platforms like Facebook and Google are and aren't doing to stop the spread of viral misinformation. But what do Americans at large think? Nothing good. https://buff.ly/2Mhtz12
Context & Ripple Effects
The Gallup-Knight numbers land a year after a Tow study found news audiences on social platforms seeking more transparency and blaming platforms for fake news — but that research covered platform users specifically. This survey of 1,203 US adults extends the same complaint to Americans at large, with 85% saying platforms like Facebook and Google don't do enough on fake news and 88% demanding transparency about how content is surfaced.
The finding is a baseline for what follows: subsequent Pew polling tracks the demand hardening into support for action, including a 2021 survey showing government-restriction support rising from 39% to 48% since 2018. The transparency ask in 2018 is the moderate end of a curve that steepens over the next three years.
First-order effects
- Facebook and Google face a quantified legitimacy gap: the people who use their feeds overwhelmingly believe the companies are underperforming on misinformation and hiding how ranking works, which raises the cost of every future moderation controversy.
- Journalists covering platform moderation — the framing Bobby Blanchard and Melissa Ryan highlight — can no longer treat public tolerance for the status quo as an assumption; the audience's own stated demands now contradict what platforms are doing.
Second-order effects
- Platforms are pushed toward visible transparency measures (surfacing explanations of how content is ranked) because 88% demand them — while the related Pew data shows users simultaneously doubt platforms can judge content correctly at all (69% had little to no confidence in accurate policing), so disclosure alone doesn't buy back trust.
- Regulators gain a public-opinion mandate: once majorities want platforms to act and a growing minority wants government to force the issue, legislative proposals on misinformation and algorithmic disclosure find a receptive electorate rather than a skeptical one.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, content moderation shifts from a discretionary corporate policy question to an accountability question — with transparency about ranking algorithms becoming the expected minimum standard, and enforcement authority contested between platforms and government.
- The durable structural change is that trust itself becomes a competitive axis for distribution platforms: a company's moderation record and explainability are priced into whether audiences and publishers accept its feed as a news channel.
The trend: US public opinion on platform misinformation is moving from asking for transparency toward demanding enforced restrictions, with both platforms and government increasingly seen as obligated actors.