Poll Shows California Policy Influencers Want Harsher Social Media Laws Than Voters

SACRAMENTO, California — California policy influencers are more eager to impose new controls on social media than Golden State voters, according to an exclusive POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab poll, signaling a possible disconnect between Sacramento elites and the people they represent.

The survey asked two different groups what kinds of measures they favored for regulating social media. A group of roughly 500 POLITICO Pro subscribers, deeply versed in California’s political landscape, overwhelmingly said they backed fact-checking posts, with 75 percent in favor. Another 67 percent said they supported blocking students from using social media at school, and 62 percent endorsed removing potential hate speech from platforms.

However, support for each policy dropped when 1,445 registered California voters were asked the same question. Just half of voters said they backed blocking students from using social media at school. Support for fact-checking sank to 60 percent, while 53 percent of voters said they favored removing potential hate speech.

The results indicate Sacramento’s heavily Democratic class of decision-makers is out ahead of the state’s voter base — which includes more independents and Republicans — when it comes to reining in social media giants.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a range of nation-leading tech rules last year, including restricting cell phones in schools, but has also faced recent court defeats on social media restrictions, including for deepfakes and handling hate speech amid First Amendment complaints.

The poll further suggests more aggressive attempts to regulate content moderation, like targeting hate speech and promoting fact-checking, are a tougher sell outside the Democratic base.

Just 40 percent of self-identified Republicans surveyed said they supported removing potential hate speech, compared to 66 percent of Democratic voters. Fact-checking notched 45 percent support among Republicans against 71 percent of Democrats who favored the policy.

“What we're seeing in the voter data is a clear reflection of differences between the elites in those parties,” Possibility Lab director and University of California, Berkeley political scientist Amy Lerman told POLITICO.

Republicans’ tepid support for both policies follows years of allegations, amplified by President Donald Trump, that stringent content moderation censors conservative speech. Trump himself was banned from Twitter (now X), Facebook and other platforms following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Now, the poll indicates it’s Democrats who are playing defense as Silicon Valley turns rightward to curry favor in Washington. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Elon Musk’s X have dumped fact-checking and loosened content moderation rules, sparking Democratic complaints that platforms are letting hate and misinformation run rampant.

“There is a clear public call for action,” said Democratic state Sen. Henry Stern, who’s pushing a bill this year that would penalize companies whose algorithms knowingly promote hate speech that violates California’s civil rights laws.

Still, there was a key area that showed more agreement across parties: measures related to protecting kids online. That topic has generally received more bipartisan backing across the country.

Sizable majorities of Democratic voters (72 percent) and Republican voters (63 percent) said they supported labeling artificial intelligence-created images and deepfakes. Blocking students from using social media at school was less popular but still garnered support from 46 percent of Democrats and 52 percent of Republicans.

Those numbers track with Sacramento’s record of bipartisanship when weighing kids’ safety protections and restrictions for deepfake pornography. State lawmakers crossed party lines to approve bills on both issues last year, including the school cell phone ban authored by Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover.

Republicans were actually more likely to favor strict limits on kids’ social media access: 51 percent said they supported banning kids under 16 from social media, compared to 43 percent of Democrats.

Conservatives’ support for stricter bans aligns with recent red state policies. Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and Utah have all passed laws requiring minors to obtain parental consent before downloading some social media apps. Republicans in Florida went further last year with a law outright blocking kids under 14 from social media.

California Democrats are currently weighing their own online age verification bill, but the measure doesn’t outright ban kids from social media or mandate parental consent for app downloads.

Notably, younger voters weren’t on board with strict social media limits for kids. Just 26 percent of Gen Z voters surveyed said they supported blocking students’ access to social media in school, compared to 54 percent of Gen Xers and 64 percent of baby boomers.

That could be a warning for the two-thirds of California policy influencers who said they’d support blocking social media access at school: Passing social media bans might alienate young voters who otherwise favor Democrats at the ballot box.

“The idea of separating [social media] from their daily lives and daily existence can be disconcerting,” Lerman said of Gen Z. “Blocking them from using social media — and this was specifically at school — is a really controversial question among young people because they are so used to having their phones on them all the time.”

Even longtime kids’ safety advocate and Common Sense Media CEO Jim Steyer was skeptical of a strict social media ban.

“Our own preferred approach is to force companies to change their design features so they reduce harms to kids and teens, rather than to deny young people who benefit from social media the opportunity to use it safely,” Steyer said in a statement.

But Stern — who previously proposed legislation that would have allowed school districts to restrict social media access — said he’s sticking by his belief after seeing the poll. He also said he supports banning kids under 16 from social media.

“We have overwhelming evidence that early and excessive exposure to social media is harming kids’ mental health,” Stern said. “This is not about taking away freedom. It's about giving our children a chance to grow up without algorithms shaping their self-worth and protecting them online.”

Younger voters appeared to share Stern’s mental health concerns: 6-in-10 Gen Zers said they supported mental health warning labels for social media similar to tobacco labels, more than any other age group.

A slim majority (52 percent) of all voters surveyed said they supported warning labels, a policy promoted by the former Biden administration surgeon general that Democratic Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan is trying to mandate with legislation this year.

“We're at a critical tipping point in public awareness,” Bauer-Kahan told POLITICO. She said the poll results “actually reinforce my commitment to this work because they show we're building the foundation for broader change.”

The survey consisted of two separate opinion studies of the California electorate and policy influencers in the state, fielded by TrueDot, the AI-accelerated research platform, in collaboration with the Citrin Center and Possibility Lab at UC Berkeley and POLITICO. The public opinion study, made possible in part with support from the California Constitution Center, was conducted in the field between July 28 and Aug. 12.

The sample of 1,445 total registered voters, including 807 registered Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, was selected at random by Verasight, with interviews conducted in English and Spanish, and includes an oversample of Hispanic voters. The modeled error estimate for the full sample is plus/minus 2.6 percent. The policy influencer study was conducted from July 30 to Aug. 11, among 512 subscribers to POLITICO Pro, and the modeled error estimate is plus/minus 3.7 percent.

A version of this story first appeared in California Decoded, POLITICO’s morning newsletter for Pros about how the Golden State is shaping tech policy within its borders and beyond. Like this content? POLITICO Pro subscribers receive it daily. Learn more at www.politicopro.com.