Do you support free speech or internet regulation? Why your answer may not be partisan

Thanks to the toxicity of social media and the weaponization of disinformation on social platforms, one of the most polarizing topics of recent years has been the need for internet regulation versus the right to freedom of speech.

You may think that which camp a person gives priority to comes down to their political allegiance—Republican or Democrat. But a new report from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Gallup, called “Media and Democracy: Unpacking America’s Complex Views on the Digital Public Square,” shows support for one or the other is neither black and white nor partisan.

In a survey of 10,000 U.S. adults, the researchers found that the desire to protect freedom of speech or crack down on the tech giants about what is posted on their platforms is not binary. Rather, it’s a spectrum, with Americans falling into one of six categories. Those categories are:

• Reformers: This is the largest group, making up 30% of respondents. The group consists of “highly engaged internet users and news consumers who are politically active and tilt heavily Democratic.” Overall, they favor the government and social media companies taking action against harmful online speech.
• Individualists: This is the second largest group, making up 19% of all respondents. This group shows “strong affinity for the Republican Party.” They also favor “individual responsibility and as little intervention by the government or social media companies as possible.” They tend to consume a lot of right-wing news.
• Concerned spectators: This next group ties with the Individualists at 19%. They are generally older and not as politically active as the two groups above. They worry about misinformation, but are divided about whether government or industry should regulate it.
• Unfazed digital natives: This chill-sounding group also makes up another 19% of respondents. They’re the modern digital native: young and more relaxed about online content harms. They support content moderation to an extent, but prefer social media companies take charge, not the government.
• Traditionalists: This group makes up 9% of respondents. It is composed of Republicans and Democrats who err on the side of free speech and think the responsibility of what is posted online lies firmly with social media companies and their users.
• Unplugged and ambivalent: This is the smallest group, making up only 4% of respondents. Of all the groups, this one spends the least amount of time online and “has conflicted and contradictory views on who should be responsible for harmful content online.”

As for what all this means in terms of potential future policy in the U.S., John Sands, Knight’s senior director of media and democracy, said, “While the debate over internet regulation has tended to the extremes, our research shows that half of Americans have more nuanced views that aren’t easily predicted by their partisan leanings. One thing is clear: Any policy interventions in the digital public square will touch all Americans, regardless of political party. Democracy demands policy approaches that reflect the diversity of perspectives.”