Everyday Americans weigh in with their views.

The past few months have seen people like Mark Zuckerberg doing mental acrobatics attempting to explain how social media platforms like Facebook intend to control the spate of “fake news” and “hate speech” posts, comments and tweets that are so often the currency of interactive “discourse” online.

And now the First Amendment Center of the Freedom Forum Institute is weighing in with the results of a survey in which ~1,000 Americans were asked for their opinions about the challenges of monitoring and controlling what gets published for the world to see.

The survey, which has been conducted annually since 1997, gives us insights into Americans’ current attitudes about censoring objectionable content balanced against free speech rights.

Asked whether social medial companies should remove certain types of content from their pages in certain circumstances, sizable majorities agreed that companies should do so in the following cases:

• Social media companies should remove false information: ~83% agree
• Social media companies should remove hate speech: ~72% agree
• Social media companies should remove personal attacks: ~68% agree

At the same time, however, when asked whether the government should require social media sites to monitor and remove objectionable content, those opinions were decidedly mixed:

• Strongly agree with having government involved in these activities: ~27%
• Somewhat agree: ~21%
• Somewhat disagree: ~20%
• Strongly disagree: ~29%
• Don’t know/not sure: ~3%

So the key takeaway is that Americans dislike objectionable content and think that the social platforms should take on the responsibility for monitoring and removing such content. But many don’t want the government doing the honors.

A mixed result for sure — and one in which governmental authorities could well be d*mned if they do and d*mned if they don’t.

More information about the survey findings can be accessed here.