Antitrust arguments against Facebook have popped up with increasing regularity over the past few years, as the tech company has weathered one data privacy and security scandal after another and continues to lose public trust. In the past few months and in the wake of a record FTC fine over the Cambridge Analytica saga, calls to break up the social media giant have only grown.
Outspoken figures from Senator Elizabeth Warren to Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes have called for anti-monopoly regulation and proposed plans to break up big tech. Facebook has pushed back with criticism that breaking it up—by splitting up Facebook proper from apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp—won't fix the problems lawmakers aim to solve, but more and more Americans across the political spectrum are beginning to support antitrust action against the company.
According to a Business Insider poll conducted by SurveyMonkey, 40 percent of Americans said they were in favor of antitrust regulation against Facebook, while only 15 percent opposed it. In the survey of 1,072 respondents, 17 percent strongly supported antitrust action, and 23 percent said they supported or "somewhat supported" breaking up Facebook. Another 28 percent of respondents were neutral, and 17 percent didn't know.
Interestingly, support for antitrust action outweighed opposition and neutral stances among both liberal and conservative respondents. Of those who identified as liberal, 45 percent supported breaking up Facebook compared to 14.2 percent who opposed and 24.1 percent who were neutral. Among conservative respondents, 39.3 percent were in favor with 16.1 percent opposed and 24.5 percent neutral.
Of those who did not identify with either politcal group, 38.7 percent of respondents were neutral compared with 28.4 percent in favor. The full survey data is available here. BI said the margin of error is plus or minus 3.12 percentage points.
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