Like many Americans, Veselka’s daily life is saturated with the products and services pushed by big technology companies, paid and free. And like many Americans, she simultaneously does not trust the businesses or the people running them when it comes to privacy issues, but can’t simply shake them off, either.
She doesn’t like the way Facebook collects her personal data to target ads, or the kinds of videos YouTube offers to her child, and she suspects that her devices are always listening.
“We go into it knowing that we can’t really trust them, but I don’t think we can get around not using it,” Veselka, 30, said of her technology. “I’ve tried giving up Facebook for a period of time. … It’s just not really something you can do and still maintain a regular social life.”
It’s the rare thing that Americans of all ages and across the political spectrum largely seem to agree on: They don’t trust social media services with their information and they view targeted ads as annoying and invasive, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll. Many Americans use social media — and most use Facebook — but 64 percent say the government should do more to rein in big tech companies.
People are caught in thrall to platforms and devices that increasingly shape the way we communicate, shop, store important information and otherwise manage the most fundamental parts of our lives. With nearly 3 billion monthly users around the world, Facebook can seem particularly inescapable.
Most Americans say they are skeptical that several Internet giants will responsibly handle their personal information and data about their online activity. And an overwhelming majority say they think tech companies don’t provide people with enough control over how their activities are tracked and used. The survey was conducted in November among a random sample of 1,122 adults nationwide.