Fox News Poll: Voters split on banning TikTok

As TikTok battles for its future in the United States, a new Fox News survey finds registered voters split on a potential government ban of the popular social media app. 

The poll, released Thursday, finds voters favor the U.S. government banning TikTok by an insignificant 1-point margin (47% favor, 46% oppose). That’s down from a 10-point spread in favor in December (51%-41%). 

The divide runs deep when looking at individual groups: men (53% favor), women (50% oppose), White voters (49% favor), nonwhite voters (56% oppose), voters under age 30 (61% oppose), voters ages 65 and over (53% favor), Democrats (51% oppose), Republicans (55% favor), independents (54% oppose), and White evangelicals (55% favor). 

Currently, 33% of voters say they are TikTok users, but that climbs to 59% among voters under age 30 — a key voting bloc.   

By a 55-point margin, TikTok users oppose the ban (21% favor vs. 76% oppose). Parents also oppose banning TikTok, but by a smaller 16-point margin (41% vs. 57%), while voters without children favor it by 6 points (49% vs. 43%).  

Earlier in March, the House passed a bill that would force TikTok, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chinese technology company ByteDance Ltd., to either find a non-Chinese entity to buy it within 6 months or face a nationwide ban in the U.S. The bill faces a new set of hurdles in the Senate. 

Calls for a ban stem from concerns that certain Chinese security laws could force ByteDance to hand over the data of the 170 million U.S. TikTok users. 

‘It’s easy to say young people support the app because they value convenience over security,’ says Republican pollster Daron Shaw who conducts Fox News surveys with Democrat Chris Anderson. ‘But I think the reality is young people assume these big social media corporations have and sell their personal data, so why not get something out of the exchange?’ 

Ambivalence over the controversial bill has reached the White House. Despite the Biden campaign having a TikTok account, President Biden has said he would sign the bill if it reached his desk. At the same time, Vice President Harris told ABC’s ‘This Week’ program on Sunday, ‘We do not intend to ban TikTok,’ but that they had concerns about the ‘owner of TikTok.’

The survey, conducted March 22-25, also asks voters how they feel about requiring parental consent for young children to create a social media account. 

The results are decisive: 81% favor parental consent for children under 13 — and there is no partisan divide, as 8 in 10 Democrats, Republicans, and independents all support such a measure. The same is true for most parents (83%) and non-parents (81%) as well as moms (81%) and dads (84%).

Just 17% of voters overall oppose the idea.

By a 3-point margin, those favoring parental consent also support the U.S. government banning TikTok (49% favor vs. 46% oppose).

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Monday banning social media accounts for children under 14 and requiring parental permission for 14 and 15-year-olds.

Conducted March 22-25, 2024, under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with a sample of 1,094 registered voters randomly selected from a national voter file. Respondents spoke with live interviewers on landlines (122) and cellphones (717) or completed the survey online after receiving a text message (255). Results based on the full sample have a margin of sampling error of ± 3 percentage points. Weights are generally applied to age, race, education, and area variables to ensure the demographics of respondents are representative of the registered voter population.