For the first time in years, Americans report feeling better about big tech.

From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Kimberly Adams.

Social media companies and other big technology firms are seemingly always under fire.

During President Biden's state of the Union address, he called for stricter regulations on Silicon Valley.

Meanwhile, the director of the FBI has raised national security concerns about TikTok,

and lawmakers across the country are considering bans on some apps and age restrictions for users.

Despite all of this, new survey results from the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University

show that public trust is up.

Barkley is the technology and innovation director for the CGO, and he says these latest results,

measuring levels of trust in big tech and government, surprised him.

This is the first time we've seen up swings in trust, including across the three levels of government,

federal, state, and local.

All the tech companies, there's increased trust.

Microsoft went up by nine points, Google, by eight, in Amazon, just behind, up by seven.

Even TikTok went up from 10 to 16 on levels of trust.

It was fascinating to see for the first time a big increase in trust for tech companies.

Yeah, that seems odd, given that a lot of the rhetoric here in Washington is pushing the exact opposite.

That's correct. It's surprising, and to be honest, we're still trying to wrap our heads around why it might be.

It's kind of thinking out loud here. This is the first time we've feel at our poll, post-COVID environment.

The most of the polls have been happening since July 2020 was the earliest.

It's been during COVID times, the pandemic was humming along at full speed.

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