Elon Musk buys Twitter
Hello from SurveyMonkey! In this week’s newsletter, we’re sharing new stats on this week’s news that Elon Musk is buying Twitter… plus data on cybersecurity and student loan repayments. Read on to learn more!
Earlier this week President Biden announced he’s considering taking action on student loan debt, which had been one of his campaign promises but has stalled. In our January CNBC|Invest in You survey, nearly 6 in 10 Americans say President Biden should make student loan forgiveness a priority and a third (34%) of Americans want all student loans to be forgiven.
A new Momentive poll shows Americans shrug off Russian cybersecurity risks: only 1 in 4 (26%) are worried about cyber attacks while most are concerned about inflation and financial instability stemming from the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Read the full story here.
Elon Musk buys Twitter
On Monday, Twitter announced it was accepting Elon Musk’s offer to buy the company for $44 billion, a price that is more than Jeff Bezos paid for the Washington Post ($250 million) in 2013, more than Marc Benioff paid for TIME Magazine ($190 million) in 2019… and still 44x more than Facebook paid for Instagram ($1 billion) when it acquired the company in 2012.
We surveyed more than 7,000 people about the deal last week, before it was finalized. Check out our Momentive blog for the full findings, or read through the key stats below:
Political affiliation divides favorability toward Elon and Twitter.
Musk has a +16 favorability rating among the general public, but partisan differences play a heavy role in favorability: 63% of Republicans have a favorable opinion vs. just 25% of Democrats.
Republicans are looking forward to Musk’s increased role at Twitter
Just as on many other issues, the country is deeply divided about the future of Twitter: 75% of Republicans say Twitter is heading in the wrong direction, while an equal and opposite number of Democrats (72%) say Twitter is heading in the right direction. But, Musk’s purchase of Twitter has reversed each party’s sentiment toward the future of the platform, with 77% of Republicans expecting Musk to have a positive effect on the company’s direction, and 56% of Democrats expecting his influence to have a negative impact.
Free speech and expression online a greater concern among Republicans
The polarized reaction between Democrats and Republicans toward Musk and Twitter underscores a deeper issue brewing today: freedom of speech and expression, especially within online platforms. In our research, a majority of Americans (66%) say social media harms democracy and free speech, similar to a 2020 Pew Research poll which found that 64% of Americans say social media has a mostly negative effect on the way things are going today. Democrats are more than twice as likely as Republicans to say social media helps promote democracy and free speech (42% vs. 17%).
Twitter’s decision to permanently ban Trump from the platform remains politically polarized: 88% of Republicans oppose the decision while 85% of Democrats support the decision.
Twitter users want an edit button
Twitter’s proposed “edit” button, which would allow users to make changes to their tweets after publishing them, receives overwhelming support, with 79% of users approving of the potential change. This is one change that both Republicans and Democrats can agree on (78% and 79% net support).
That’s it for this week–thanks for reading! If you’re on Twitter, follow some of the members of our research team: