New levels of Republicans now say that publicly calling out people on social media for posts they consider offensive is holding others accountable for their actions, a Pew Research Center poll recently discovered.
Pew found that for the first time in several years, Democrats and Republicans are about equally as likely to approve of calling out offensive content. In 2025, 56% of Republicans support the practice, compared with 34% who said the same in 2022. In both 2020 and 2022, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to say that the practice was holding others accountable (75% and 65%, respectively). Currently, 59% of Democrats hold that view.
The share of Republicans who said that publicly calling out potentially offensive content only punishes people who don’t deserve it dropped sharply between 2022 and 2025, going from 62% to 41%. Meanwhile, the percentage of Democrats who oppose calling others out on social media grew by six points in the same time frame (32% vs. 38%).
Overall, 56% of U.S. adults say that calling out others on social media is holding people accountable, up slightly from 51% who said the same in 2022. Pew also found that across various demographics, majorities generally also approved of publicly calling out potentially offensive content.
Women were more likely to approve than men (60% vs. 53%), and Asian adults were the most likely race to support the practice (70%). Sixty-five percent of black adults, 58% of Hispanic adults, and 54% of white adults held similar views. The poll also discovered that across races, Republicans have become more likely to say that pointing out offensive social media posts holds others accountable.
Pew noted that the survey was conducted just two weeks after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. As CatholicVote reported at the time, the event sparked a wave of social media posts celebrating Kirk’s death, leading others to publicly condemn the responses.
