From reading the page the study “examines public attitudes social media regulation and banning political advertising from social platforms.”
The question: To what extent, if at all, would you support or oppose banning political adverts from being shown on social media platforms?
They conclude with: Voters for far-right parties are frequently less likely to support banning of political advertising on social media … and less likely to think regulations are too lax … typically less likely to think social media regulations are too relaxed (with Italy being an exception).
> They conclude with: Voters for far-right parties are frequently less likely to support banning of political advertising on social media
Maybe the issue here is that many political options have social media and underground marketing as their only option due to heavy bias and censorship on European traditional media.
Even the term used here "far right" is an euphemism for opinions not approved by governing European regimes.
In European politics, "far right" is a dogwhistle for "anti-imperialist" or "pro-nationalist". It is otherwise a semantic void into which you can pour whatever prejudices you have against the proletariat and be assured that the state and its apparatchiks will happily reward you for airing them as long as you perpetuate the label of "far right" against their designated class enemies.
Yes, that is an opinion you are supposed to have. You are supposed to associate the regime's class enemies with nazis and communists so that their claims can be dismissed without a single rational thought. "They beat up jews and gays!" is a great way to avoid having a difficult conversation about the regime's blatantly hostile policies against their own people.
> It [regime] is used colloquially by some, such as government officials, media journalists, and policy makers, when referring to governments that they believe are repressive, undemocratic, or illegitimate or simply do not square with the person’s own view of the world.
The current government constantly violates the consitution, they are still trying to implement Vorratsdatenspeicherung which was ruled illegal by the constitutional court. The former government tried to change how elections work with the goal of kicking out opposition parties. And for the current elections there still wasn't a needed re-count because the organisation that needs to approve a re-count is the current government themselves. How is any of that in line with the consitution? It's ever only an argument when it's the "side I don't like".
> EDIT: I am ignoring this link since its main source is Corrective, propaganda outlet funded by the German regime.
Well, if you ignore all the evidence you consider inconvenient, you could, you know, read their own self-description as "right wing" and combine that with the observation of them being too right wing for the other right wing parties.
you are here https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/afd-verfassung...
"EDIT: I am ignoring this link since its main source is Corrective, propaganda outlet funded by the German regime" Maybe they just publish what you don't like. They are a left outlet but certainly not pro government.
"Far right" isn't a euphemism for anything, it's exactly what it is. Countries that collapsed into actual fascism (e.g. Germany, Italy, Spain) within living memory, which then spent the subsequent century abutting the monstrosity of a totalitarian Communist regime ("far left") are indeed reluctant to air "far right" and "far left" views because they understand how they play out in practice: global war killing tens of millions, millions of civilians dead at the hands of their own state-sponsored militaries, a legacy of atrocity that will never wash clean, utter economic and cultural devastation echoing for decades... just an absolutely sickening inversion of the human spirit and what people want to believe in as citizens.
"Far right" views are far right views. They are morally repulsive in the extreme. We've witnessed the consequences before.
Somehow the modern right are the most opposed to government intervention these days, so I would expect them to be the majority in opposition to almost any proposed regulation or legislation, regardless of the contents.
EU commision has a centre right head. Germany has a centre right head. Italy has Meloni. Yet most people in these countries want more social media regulation.
Note how lots of slicing is provided on a bunch of dimensions except the one that really matters: age groups. Fully willing to bet 60+ is both more likely to answer these surveys and very pro-censorship. If we weighted this survey by remaining life expectancy I bet the results would be inverted.
The irony is that youth are simulatenously the biggest consumers of (new) social media, and the staunchest haters [EDIT: this is directly contradicted by the research article I found below…]. I can’t find the source so take it with a grain of salt, but I’ve read that something like 80% of TikTok users under some age think they’d be happier if it didn’t exist and/or wish it didn’t exist.
I don’t think this is really an issue of censorship to a lot of people (though that may be how it shakes out in the government) but rather of control over their digital environment and sanity.
EDIT: I don’t think this is what I’m remembering, but it has concrete numbers somewhat lower than I thought (48% of teens think social media harms people their age, but only 14% think it harms them personally) https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/04/22/teens-social...
Maybe we should listen to those that have more experience and perspective of living without social media as they can see the difference of having/not having it more clearly?
Interesting, that you equal social media regulation = pro censorship.
Btw every age group over 30 has a majority to imitate Australian model in Germany.
Even lower 30 there is only a small relative majority against it. So no, your hypothesis for Germany
is wrong.
https://www.bild.de/politik/inland/social-media-verbot-deuts...
If you want to say "Enforcing regulation equals censorship", that is fine by me. For many, there could be a difference between them, as they reserve censorship to unjust regulation.
That would be a matter of linguistics, and I can't say which of both definitions is true.
No it is not necessarily. For example forcing to have a chronical timeline on followers would be strong social media regulation but no censorship even in the broadest terms.
The article contains the questions they asked. The questions are only asking about social media. Specifically whether social media is sufficiently regulated and whether political advertising should be allowed on social media.
It does not mention surveillance, and it's not about tech in general. The title is misleading. (Edit: the OP kindly updated the title and it's no longer misleading)
My pet idea (which I'm also reluctant to fully get behind):
Participation in social media (including comments sections in newspapers, etc) only with verified identities but behind some sort of escrow (so that you're anonymous to the public and also the platform... until you break the law by threatening SA or similar).
Why?
Bots, trolls, etc are a huge problem and if only actual people could post, this would a bit harder for bad actors.
There are plenty of "easy money working from home" scams where the victim/patsy is a regular person duped into criminal activities like mail forwarding packages bought with stolen credit cards. I wonder if the same ecosystem would crop up around such an identity scheme.
I think we should shut down the current crop of social media
but that isn't going to happen anytime soon.
I think an easier way to achieves instead of imposing this on everyone.
Social media companies should be required to add paid tier where
the individual user can block the types of the user does not want
to see, (or just block all of them).
In some places perhaps the government would ban "free social media"
and only allow the paid tier to operate.
This in the best case would make the price reasonably low, if the
social media company does not want to lose a lot of users.
Perhaps even subsidised. At which point the goal set above is
achieved.
It should be regulated similar to online gambling in the UK (so barely, but it is a start).
The key being age verification. Under 18, or maybe 16 accounts have: Mandatory blackout periods (after 9pm most account functions stop working, parents could set this more aggressively if they cared about the child's studies). Interaction limits like time spent on feeds, type of content that will appear in feeds, number of friends, visibility of comments ect. Only one account allowed and enforcement taken seriously.
Over 16/18s should have the option to "time themselves out" for a chosen period with their account going into a limited mode where feeds no longer work . Similar to the option problem gamblers have where gambling sites are supposed to stop them playing if they block themselves. Maybe when someone needs to focus for exams or a work commitment.
Sure kids will try and get round limits, but I think when you have investment in a main account it would be something you would want to keep, so the threat of loosing it would be real.
I've changed the title to be more precise (from tech regulation to social media regulation).
It's important though, that attempts from foreign governmental entities (you might guess which country) might backfire if it's against popular policy decisions.
I'm not sure if this foreign government is aware of it.
The questions seem more focused around social media but I wish there were more safeguards to stop us (I’m talking as an EU citizen) from crashing and burning when the AI bubble pops.
I don't condone more regulation if it means decreasing the public's voice. Some things a society should endure in order to LEARN or GROW as a society or a person. There are things worth keeping out of that sphere but it's minimally relevant to this legal push. After all "far right" is not the issue, it's far left.
A good start would be government officials and institutions to stop relying on and promoting them. Ministers in office shouldn't be using them to communicate with their constituents. Public service broadcasters shouldn't be publishing on them.
Then it would be great of the population follows.
But it is certainly not the role of government to decide what foreign communications services their citizens can access.
Autoritarian censorship is not a democratic tool even if other apparently democratic countries are doing it.
I think you're either misinformed or a far-left troll. The issue I see is demonization of a vision of a single company but the way I see it X has truth-first approach objectively. Meta is a cesspool of lies. I see my post can be seen in the same way. Can we find a middle ground? That could perhaps solve the issue on larger scale.
We ban accounts that post like this, regardless of how right they are or feel they are, so it would be good if you'd review the rules and stick to them.
> as the European Union (and former EU states like the UK) are transparently run like banana republics whose barely-elected bureaucrats run them like their own little ramshackle empire for their personal enrichment
Bold Statement. I wonder though, could you offer examples of places in the world today where it is being done otherwise?
Also someone whose name is Earl (norsk-germanic for King) and King.. you seem to be hell bent on an anti-european slant.. whilst having a pretty European name.
Seriously, though, it's not that we don't have our own problems... just that I'm tired of europeans telling the rest of us how we should run our own affairs. Inviting Europe into the Internet was a mistake.
Never underestimate the level of grievance these people wallow in every day. Legitimately a big part of it is making up stories so they can feel like they have been victimised and can therefore say and do what they want in response because they were wronged first. The account you’re replying to is a masterclass in this exact behaviour
DSA only applies to Social Media doing in Europe. X can leave if they want. But since you believe gay men or jews aren't threated by nazis in Germany i'm not sure how to convince you anyway.
For what it's worth, I'm European, and I disagree with the US on many things, but I'm not gonna dismiss all Americans' point of view because of that, regardless of how bad I think the country does things. Even the most horrible practices, can have small helpful ideas, that you can cherry-pick. But, no one is forcing you to do so, just like no one can really force us off the internet either.
Well, technically, yes, you can be forced off the internet ... insofar as no one on this side of the pond wants to connect to you. Bam. You're gone. I long for that day so that I don't have to listen to eurocrats whinging about our politics.
> the freedom of speech, the right to privacy, obscenity, or indeed anything of import online
That's funny - the EU has better digital laws protecting the average Joe than the US could ever muster in the current climate... GDPR, DMA, etc. You decry 'censorship' and 'barely-elected bureaucrats' while the US is controlled by the billionaire class.
If you don't care, why do you comment?
Recent actions show the US government cares. And it might be good to know how people would act on the actions.
(Also check your assumption about other countries.)
Let me guess, you only see freedom of speech from the perspective of those who speak and not of those who don’t dare to speak because of online harassment. Strangely enough their freedom of speech doesn’t seem to matter for people who justify things like hate speech under the label of free speech.
In a society freedoms are compromises. Absolute freedoms means all for some and nothing for the rest.
The EU at least tries a balance.
Countries like the US don’t seem to care and seem to favor the strongest or even sociopaths.
The question: To what extent, if at all, would you support or oppose banning political adverts from being shown on social media platforms?
They conclude with: Voters for far-right parties are frequently less likely to support banning of political advertising on social media … and less likely to think regulations are too lax … typically less likely to think social media regulations are too relaxed (with Italy being an exception).
Maybe the issue here is that many political options have social media and underground marketing as their only option due to heavy bias and censorship on European traditional media.
Even the term used here "far right" is an euphemism for opinions not approved by governing European regimes.
AfD in Germany. Le Pen in France. Fratelli d’Italia in Italy. VOX in Spain. PVV in the Netherlands.
I do not know that any of those parties would seriously disagree with their classification as far right.
AfD party later is gay and merited with a coloured migrant lay.
But hey, they beat gays and Jews. Probably kick kittens and puppies too.
https://www.zentralratderjuden.de/presse/juden-gegen-die-afd...
> It [regime] is used colloquially by some, such as government officials, media journalists, and policy makers, when referring to governments that they believe are repressive, undemocratic, or illegitimate or simply do not square with the person’s own view of the world.
0 - https://www.britannica.com/topic/regime
Seems like they don't like when their citizens apply the same terminology.
EDIT: I am ignoring this link since its main source is Corrective, propaganda outlet funded by the German regime.
https://afd-verbot.de/beweise
Well, if you ignore all the evidence you consider inconvenient, you could, you know, read their own self-description as "right wing" and combine that with the observation of them being too right wing for the other right wing parties.
"Far right" views are far right views. They are morally repulsive in the extreme. We've witnessed the consequences before.
I don’t think this is really an issue of censorship to a lot of people (though that may be how it shakes out in the government) but rather of control over their digital environment and sanity.
EDIT: I don’t think this is what I’m remembering, but it has concrete numbers somewhat lower than I thought (48% of teens think social media harms people their age, but only 14% think it harms them personally) https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/04/22/teens-social...
They'll be weighing constituents by their ability and willingness to give campaign donations and other favors.
Paradox of Tolerance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Participating in a society means social contract, not: I have the absolute right to sink the boat so that everyone dies.
That would be a matter of linguistics, and I can't say which of both definitions is true.
You mean "social media regulation". Not "tech regulation".
It does not mention surveillance, and it's not about tech in general. The title is misleading. (Edit: the OP kindly updated the title and it's no longer misleading)
Which, ironically, given the topic of this post, speaks to the kinds of pathologies we find out on social media these days.
[1]the UK calls its military satcomms network that, but we've always been different...
Participation in social media (including comments sections in newspapers, etc) only with verified identities but behind some sort of escrow (so that you're anonymous to the public and also the platform... until you break the law by threatening SA or similar).
Why?
Bots, trolls, etc are a huge problem and if only actual people could post, this would a bit harder for bad actors.
I think an easier way to achieves instead of imposing this on everyone. Social media companies should be required to add paid tier where the individual user can block the types of the user does not want to see, (or just block all of them).
In some places perhaps the government would ban "free social media" and only allow the paid tier to operate.
This in the best case would make the price reasonably low, if the social media company does not want to lose a lot of users. Perhaps even subsidised. At which point the goal set above is achieved.
The key being age verification. Under 18, or maybe 16 accounts have: Mandatory blackout periods (after 9pm most account functions stop working, parents could set this more aggressively if they cared about the child's studies). Interaction limits like time spent on feeds, type of content that will appear in feeds, number of friends, visibility of comments ect. Only one account allowed and enforcement taken seriously.
Over 16/18s should have the option to "time themselves out" for a chosen period with their account going into a limited mode where feeds no longer work . Similar to the option problem gamblers have where gambling sites are supposed to stop them playing if they block themselves. Maybe when someone needs to focus for exams or a work commitment.
Sure kids will try and get round limits, but I think when you have investment in a main account it would be something you would want to keep, so the threat of loosing it would be real.
If you concede in your first sentence, obviously not.
It’s happened in Australia. It’s building in America. And I think there are enough European countries
It's important though, that attempts from foreign governmental entities (you might guess which country) might backfire if it's against popular policy decisions. I'm not sure if this foreign government is aware of it.
They're cesspools of far-right propaganda, American and Russian disinformation and psychological warfare on our population.
Democracy has to defend itself. We shouldn't just let foreign despots and their oligarchs walk all over us with their cyberweapons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy
Then it would be great of the population follows.
But it is certainly not the role of government to decide what foreign communications services their citizens can access.
Autoritarian censorship is not a democratic tool even if other apparently democratic countries are doing it.
https://news.sky.com/story/the-x-effect-how-elon-musk-is-boo...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We ban accounts that post like this, regardless of how right they are or feel they are, so it would be good if you'd review the rules and stick to them.
Bold Statement. I wonder though, could you offer examples of places in the world today where it is being done otherwise?
Also someone whose name is Earl (norsk-germanic for King) and King.. you seem to be hell bent on an anti-european slant.. whilst having a pretty European name.
"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Seriously, though, it's not that we don't have our own problems... just that I'm tired of europeans telling the rest of us how we should run our own affairs. Inviting Europe into the Internet was a mistake.
It's the results of a survey where yougov (A European organisation) asked other Europeans how they think European social media should be regulated.
No suggestion that laws would/could/should be changed anywhere, and especially not in America.
Ok, this level of self-denial is funny!
the bottomless irony of this statement XD
That's funny - the EU has better digital laws protecting the average Joe than the US could ever muster in the current climate... GDPR, DMA, etc. You decry 'censorship' and 'barely-elected bureaucrats' while the US is controlled by the billionaire class.
If you are from the US, I’m laughing my butt off, the irony is not lost on me.
In a society freedoms are compromises. Absolute freedoms means all for some and nothing for the rest. The EU at least tries a balance. Countries like the US don’t seem to care and seem to favor the strongest or even sociopaths.
By this logic, when government suppresses speech that is a violation of one's rights?
"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html