People’s overall willingness to share their views

There are many social situations where people might have the opportunity to discuss
political issues. We asked respondents to tell us how willing they would be to join a
conversation “if the topic of the government’s surveillance programs came up” in a
variety of settings, online and offline. We asked them how willing they would be to join
in the conversation at a community meeting, at work, at a restaurant with friends, at a
family dinner, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

In most social settings, the majority of Americans reported that they would be willing to
join a conversation about the Snowden-NSA revelations. The only settings where most
people were not willing to discuss their opinion was on Facebook and Twitter.

 74% of all adults said they would be “very” or “somewhat” willing to join the
conversation if the Snowden-NSA story came up at a family dinner.
 74% of all adults said they would be “very” or “somewhat” willing to join the
conversation if the Snowden-NSA story came up at a restaurant with friends.
 66% of all adults said they would be “very” or “somewhat” willing to join the
conversation if the Snowden-NSA story came up at a community meeting.
 65% of employed adults said they would be “very” or “somewhat” willing to
join the conversation if the Snowden-NSA story came up at work.
 42% of Facebook users said they would be “very” or “somewhat” willing to join
the conversation on Facebook.10
 41% of Twitter users said they would be “very” or “somewhat” willing to join
the conversation if the Snowden-NSA story came up on Twitter.