Some 47% adults have no or low trust in tech giants, while just one in four had high or moderately high trust, a survey for the Office for National Statistics found
Nearly half of Brits don’t trust big tech firms, figures have revealed.
Some 47% adults have no or low trust in tech giants, while just one in four had high or moderately high trust, a survey for the Office for National Statistics found.
Only a quarter (27%) think big tech firms will benefit their lives, while the same proportion disagree. Almost half (46%) were unsure about the benefits.
The wild west of social media was thrown into the spotlight again this week after it emerged Southport killer Axel Rudakubana had obsessed over violent content online. On Tuesday Home Secretary Yvette Cooper ordered tech giants to take down the “dangerous” content that Rudakubana accessed – and urged them to do more to stop the spread of vile content.
It comes after former US President Joe Biden raised fears of an “oligarchy” of extreme wealth and power and a “potential rise of a tech industrial complex” in America in his final speech before leaving office.
Tech titans had prominent seats at Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, signalling the close ties between Silicon Valley and the new US administration. Attendees included Twitter/X boss Elon Musk, Meta’s chief Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s boss Tim Cook, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai and Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos.
Elsewhere, on Friday, Google agreed to new rules after the UK’s competition watchdog launched a probe into the tech giant on fake reviews. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said the US firm had agreed to sanction UK businesses that have boosted their star rating with fake reviews, and to sanction people who have written fake reviews for UK businesses.
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Google is one of the most used review platforms in the world, with links to businesses often appearing alongside a star rating in Google search results, and the CMA said the changes the firm had agreed to meant it was now “leading the way” in tackling fake reviews.
The CMA said the agreement comes after it launched an investigation into the tech giant over concerns it may have been breaching consumer law by failing to take sufficient action to protect people from fake reviews, including not doing enough to detect and remove fake reviews, act on suspicious behaviour patterns or adequately sanction both businesses and individuals who took part in fake review activity.
::: ONS’s findings were based on a sample of 8,403 households between December 4, 2024 to January 5, 2025.
