No Change in Trust in Facebook and Twitter Despite US Government Investigations into Fake News

In the sixth wave of the Ipsos poll on trust in news sources, broadcast news again tops the list of top news source. Among various media outlets, print newspapers are the most trusted (60%), closely followed by broadcast TV news (59%) and newspapers’ websites (55%). Despite recent comments from both companies about fake news, trust in Facebook and Twitter hasn’t seen significant change since this poll began in January 2017. Trust in Facebook has fallen only 3 percentage points in the last nine months, now at 41% from 44% in January. Similarly, trust in Twitter has fallen only 1 point from 44% in January to 43% in the most recent September wave. However, trust in social media generally has seen a 5-percentage point bump since January, now at 20% up from 15% in January.

These are findings from Wave 6 of an Ipsos poll conducted September 27-28, 2017. For the survey, a sample of roughly 1,009 adults age 18+ from the continental U.S., Alaska and Hawaii was interviewed online in English. Wave 1 of this poll was conducted January 12-13, 2017 and Wave 2 of this poll was conducted February 23-24, 2017, Wave 3 of this poll was conducted May 4-5, 2017, Wave 4 of the poll was conducted June 15-16,2017 and Wave 5 of the poll was conducted August 10-11, 2017.