The Digital Trust Report 2020: How US social media users rank nine major social platforms on privacy, safety, misinformation, ad annoyance, and ad relevance

Executive Summary

Insider Intelligence’s 2020 Digital Trust Report evaluates US social media users’ perceptions of nine major social networks—Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube—on five key measures of digital trust: Security, Legitimacy, Community, Ad Experience, and Ad Relevance.

Three Key Questions This Report Will Answer:

• What is digital trust?
• How does the digital trust that US social media users have in social networks affect their engagement with ads on social platforms?
• How do US social media users perceive the social networks they use on key measures of trust, including: whether each platform protects their data and privacy; shows them deceptive content; makes them feel safe to participate and post; shows them annoying ads; and shows them relevant ads?

WHAT'S IN THIS REPORT? This report analyzes how US social users perceive social platforms on measures of trust and ad engagement, with an eye toward helping advertisers make better decisions about how they invest ad dollars. Gaining deeper insight into user perceptions across these five areas, which users say impact their trust in social platforms, can help social platforms to win ad dollars and advertisers to make more informed decisions about where and how they allocate their media budgets. The Digital Trust Report evaluates consumer perception of nine major social networks—Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube—and ranks those platforms according to how our survey respondents perceive them along our five pillars of digital trust. The Digital Trust Ranking featured in the report is based on an online survey of 1,865 US social media users fielded from May 28, 2020 to June 3, 2020. Respondents had used at least one of the social media platforms in our study in the past 12 months. Respondents were sourced by a third-party sample provider to closely resemble the US population on the criteria of gender, age (18–74), and income.