Third of adults oppose online political ads

In an Intuit Research/Norstat poll of 1,108 UK adults, 35% of respondents said paid online political advertising should not be allowed, increasing to 43% for those aged 55+. A fifth ( 19%) of 18-24s surveyed felt it should not be allowed.

Almost half ( 42%) of respondents felt it should be allowed with regulation, while 8% said it should be allowed without regulation, and 14% didn’t know.

The research also asked respondents about their perceptions of which sources contain fake news, with 35% of Facebook users claiming Facebook contains "a great deal" of fake news and 33% of Twitter users saying the same of the platform. A fifth ( 20%) said they encounter "a great deal" of fake news by word of mouth from friends, family or colleagues.

When asked ‘Does consumer-generated news impact society’s ability to be well-informed?’, over a third ( 35%) of respondents said it has a negative impact, 27% said it was positive, 19% felt it was neither and 20% didn’t know.

Fieldwork was undertaken by Norstat from 21-29 November 2019.