Digital Trust is the confidence that consumers have in social media platforms they use and find trustworthy with their data and information, and which provide them the safest environment to engage with other people and different forms of content.
The 2020 Digital Trust Survey involved nine platforms, 1865 American respondents age between 18 to 74. The survey was done between the period of 28th May till 3rd June 2020, with the help of a sample provided by a third party.
After the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, Facebook lost a lot of trust in the eyes of millions of consumers all over the world, and sadly, the 2020 US Digital Trust Survey also revealed that Facebook is still the least trusted social media platform. People are still apprehensive about it safe for their data privacy, and about 32% of American Facebook users somewhat disagreed with having confidence in the platform for keeping their data secure. Audrey Schomer, the senior research analyst at Insider Intelligence says that their research will help to highlight the importance of data privacy that these social media platforms must take care of and provide their users with, and the user engagement data should never be mishandled or misappropriated again, as it happened with Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica Scandal.
On the other hand, LinkedIn ranked as the most-trusted platform, with only 10% of American users finding it somewhat unsafe for their data and privacy.
When the US respondents of the survey were asked about how many of them agree that social media platforms protect their privacy and data, around 20% of users strongly agreed for LinkedIn and Snapchat, 16% of them strongly agreed for YouTube and Instagram, 17% for Twitter, and 15% of them strongly agreed for Pinterest and Reddit.
Surprisingly, even though that TikTok is going through a bumpy ride these days because it is a Chinese company and the US government calling it a threat to national security, still, 21% of users strongly agreed that the platform protects their privacy and data.
But TikTok and Twitter were quite low performers in the survey overall, with 22% of TikTok and 21% of Twitter users somewhat lacking confidence in the protection these platforms provided their users with their data and privacy.
On the other hand, Facebook, which has been trying to make things more transparent over these years has remained unable to attain the public’s digital trust. Only 12% of users strongly agree about it being able to safely protect their data.
The top rankers remained LinkedIn and Pinterest, with hardly any known data privacy issues, and hence, they are considered as the most trustworthy platforms amongst all. This means that they are considered as the best platforms by brands and advertisers also because these results impact how the US social media users will interact with the ads they see on these platforms.
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