Twitter, Meta and TikTok are three of the world’s biggest social media giants.
They’re also three of the brands with the worst reputations in the U.S., according to the recently released 2023 Axios Harris Poll 100 reputation rankings.
Millions of monthly active users across the country couldn’t keep the social media companies off the list, which Axios and The Harris Poll compiled by asking more than 16,000 Americans to score the 100 companies they considered “most visible” across nine categories of reputation.
Meta and Twitter both scored poorly in the “culture” and “ethics” categories. Each business recently faced public backlash after laying off thousands of workers over email — just one in a series of escalating dramas at Twitter, which Fidelity estimates is now worth one-third of the $44 billion Elon Musk paid for it in October 2022.
TikTok underperformed in “citizenship” and “character,” amid growing concerns from American lawmakers over potential Chinese federal government influence on the platform.
They’re not the only brands with low approval ratings right now. Here are the seven brands with the worst reputations in America, according to the poll:
- The Trump Organization
- FTX
- Fox Corporation
- Meta
- Spirit Airlines
- TikTok
Americans named the Trump Organization as the company with the worst public perception in the country. It’s the only business on the list with a “very poor” overall score, the lowest possible tier.
The Trump Organization scored particularly low in the “character,” “trust” and “ethics” categories. The ranking was published just days before former president Donald Trump, who ran the Trump Organization for decades, was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX has the second-worst reputation amongst Americans, following its collapse in November 2022. The saga deepened after CNBC reported that ex-FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried traded funds from borrowers’ accounts without permission, resulting in a billion-dollar class action lawsuit.
Fox Corporation made the list ahead of settling its Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit for $785 million last month. The media company was sued for publishing the false claim that voting machines rigged the 2020 election.
BP and Bitcoin just missed the top seven, but still earned “poor” ratings. BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill earned it the title of “Worst Company in America” in 2011. Twelve years later, it seems the British oil and gas giant still has a long way to go to build trust with the public, scoring particularly low in the “citizenship” and “ethics” categories.
Other notable companies on the list include fashion businesses Balenciaga and Shein, which checked in at Nos. 10 and 16, respectively.
Some Twitter users are still calling for Balenciaga boycotts months after a November 2022 ad depicted children holding harness-wearing teddy bears. The Spanish luxury fashion house later apologized in an Instagram statement, saying it was sorry for the “unsettling documents in our campaign.”
This year marks Balenciaga and FTX’s first appearances among the country’s 100 most visible companies.
The Trump Organization, TikTok and Spirit Airlines held their spots from last year’s rankings. Meta and Twitter became slightly more reputable, by one spot each, and Fox Corporation went from fifth-worst to third-worst.
Source: CNBC
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