Americans' First Amendment Knowledge Gap

A substantial share of U.S. adults lack basic factual knowledge about what the First Amendment actually protects, and many conflate constitutional text with other founding documents or other amendments. This gap coexists with broad stated support for press freedom but sharp disagreement about its limits, especially when technology platforms and political actors are invoked. — If large swaths of the public misunderstand constitutional protections, debates over regulation (platform rules, deplatforming, national security exceptions) will be contested on different factual bases and will be easier to politicize or to frame around trust rather than law.