Survey of 12,043 US adults: 59% distrust Facebook for political and election news, including 62% of Republicans and 59% of Democrats, while 48% distrust Twitter
Context & Ripple Effects
This Fortune-reported survey extends a multi-year erosion of trust that earlier polls charted piecemeal: a Reuters/Ipsos poll found only 41% of Americans trusted Facebook to obey privacy laws back in 2018, and a Harris poll that November put trust with personal information at just 22%. What is new here is the scope — 12,043 respondents — and the unanimity across party lines, with Republicans (62%) and Democrats (59%) distrusting Facebook for political and election news at nearly identical rates.
The finding lands weeks before a Pew survey showed 74% of Americans with little or no confidence in tech companies preventing platform misuse ahead of the 2020 election, and it foreshadows the broader collapse measured a year later, when 72% of US internet users told surveyors they distrust Facebook outright. Distrust has stopped being a partisan talking point and become a shared baseline.
First-order effects
- Facebook enters the 2020 election cycle with its political and election news credibility contested by majorities of both parties, weakening its claim to be neutral infrastructure for campaign communication.
- Twitter faces the same dynamic at slightly lower intensity — 48% distrust — meaning both platforms' election-related products are judged untrustworthy by roughly half the country before voting begins.
Second-order effects
- With no partisan constituency defending either platform, lawmakers from both parties have less friction advancing measures like the Clarity Act provisions under negotiation, turning a PR problem into a legislative one.
- Advertisers and campaigns buying political reach on these platforms face a credibility discount: impressions delivered next to content users already distrust are worth less, pressuring the ad products both companies depend on.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, platforms respond structurally rather than editorially — Facebook was already planning to test a video-first immersive player replacing the News Feed, a design shift that de-emphasizes the news and political content users say they distrust.
- Persistent cross-party distrust normalizes treating social platforms as regulated media companies rather than neutral conduits, making election-content rules a standing fixture of US tech policy rather than a crisis response.
The trend: Public trust in social platforms as political news sources is collapsing on a bipartisan basis, converting an episodic scandal problem into a permanent regulatory and product-design constraint.