Public trust in major technology companies, Google, TikTok, and Meta, remains low in Switzerland, with a majority of people viewing them as profit-driven, according to a recent survey. The study released Tuesday by research institute gfs.bern showed that 90% of respondents believe big tech companies are primarily motivated by profit, while 94% support increased protections for children and young people on social media platforms.<\/p>\n
Political influence concerns<\/p>\n
Concerns also extend to political influence and dependency. Around 84% of respondents fear excessive political influence from the countries where these companies are based, while 82% say Switzerland risks becoming overly dependent on foreign tech firms, particularly from the US and China. Overall perceptions remain mixed, with 40% of respondents expressing a neutral view of big tech companies, while 38% view them negatively and only 21% hold a positive opinion.<\/p>\n
Digitalization skepticism<\/p>\n
The survey also highlighted broader concerns over digitalization. While 58% of respondents consider digitalization positive overall, only 48% believe it benefits society as a whole, and 46% say its impact on democratic processes is somewhat or very negative.<\/p>\n
Support for regulation<\/p>\n
A majority of respondents support a stronger role for the state in regulating digital technologies. Some 88% said the government should ensure that decisions made by artificial intelligence are transparent, while 86% believe human oversight should be required in critical cases. At the same time, trust in public institutions remains relatively high, with 75% of respondents expressing confidence in Swiss authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Public trust in major technology companies, Google, TikTok, and Meta, remains low in Switzerland, with a majority of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10613,8857,41,17,24738],"class_list":{"0":"post-42814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-switzerland","8":"tag-google","9":"tag-meta","10":"tag-swiss","11":"tag-switzerland","12":"tag-tiktok"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116328907980712715","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}