TikTok’s Growth As A News Source Raises Concerns About Their Content

The Pew Research Center recently released its annual survey on social media websites as a source for news. This year Pew found the growing prominence of TikTok among all social media websites as a news source.

Although TikTok has not been accepting political ads since 2019, it has become a strong influencer with political thought especially among young adults. A recent test however, found TikTok appears to be unable or unwilling to flag any false political information on its platform.

Nowadays millions of Americans access news on social media, TikTok is one of the few reporting an increase in usage. Also, TikTok’s popularity is more prevalent with young adults than other social media platform. Pew Research found 26% of all U.S. adults under the age of 30 regularly get their news on TikTok. For older demographics accessing TikTok as a regular news source drops precipitously from 10% for adults 30-49, to 4% for adults 50-64 and just 1% for adults 65+.

The total number of U.S. adults that regularly access TikTok as a news source has risen from 3% in 2020 to 10% today. By comparison, in recent years the news consumption for rival social media websites has either been flat or declined.

Because of its larger U.S. subscriber base of nearly 200 million users, Pew reports 31% of total U.S. adults regularly get their news from Facebook and one in four U.S. adults regularly use the video sharing site YouTube to get news. Following the two largest websites were Twitter at 14%, Instagram at 13%, TikTok at 10%, Reddit at 8%. Trailing were LinkedIn (4%), Snapchat (4%), Nextdoor (4%), WhatsApp (3%) and Twitch (1%). Overall, Pew found that about half of all U.S. adults at least sometimes get their news from social media.

In just two years TikTok as a news source for regular users grew from 22% in 2020 to 33%, ranking. TikTok fourth behind the established Twitter, Facebook and Reddit. Only two other social media platforms Instagram and Twitch reported any growth as news sources among regular users since 2020 and both increases were minimal.

% Of each social media website who regularly get news from there

2020 2021 2022

Twitter 59% 55% 53%

Facebook 54% 47% 44%

Reddit 42% 38% 37%

TikTok 22% 29% 33%

YouTube 32% 30% 30%

Instagram 28% 27% 29%

Snapchat 18% 16% 15%

LinkedIn 15% 14% 13%

Twitch 11% 13% 13%

WhatsApp 13% 14% 10%

Survey of U.S. adults from July 18-August 21, 2022

Source: Pew Research Center

A major issue with accessing news from social media has been the accuracy of the information, especially election information. In August TikTok launched an Elections Center to “connect people who engage with election content to authoritative information.” This includes information on where and how to vote with identification being marked that pertained to the midterm elections. In September, TikTok initiated new policies making government and politician accounts to be verified. In addition, any campaign fundraising was prohibited.

Despite restrictions on political messaging and a growing presence as a news source, TikTok appears to have no safeguards in place to prevent false political information. A recent test conducted by the Global Witness and the Cybersecurity for Democracy team at New York University found TikTok failed to identify 90% of the twenty political ads (ten each in English and Spanish) that had false and/or misleading claims about the midterm elections. The test found Facebook also approved a large number of blatantly inaccurate and/or false political messages. Conversely, YouTube was able to identify and reject all the bogus political ads. Furthermore, YouTube suspended the channel that posted the test ads.

Of the test, Jon Lloyd, Senior Advisor at Global Witness, said, “This is no longer a new problem. For years we have seen key democratic processes undermined by disinformation, lies and hate being spread on social media platforms – the companies themselves even claim to recognize the problem. But this research shows they are still simply not doing enough to stop threats to democracy surfacing on their platforms.”

Suzanne Nossel, CEO, PEN America, adds, “Indications that Tiktok has failed to address manifestly false political advertising ahead of the election are cause for alarm. As TikTok becomes a platform of choice for young people to get information, we face serious risks in relation to the untrammeled spread of disinformation. Whereas major American social media companies have felt at least some imperative to wrestle with the implications of their platforms for American democracy – albeit haltingly and inadequately – Tiktok is a Chinese-owned company that operates at the behest of the Beijing government. We do not have visibility into how Tiktok’s algorithms deal with disinformation, and whether the company’s nationality plays a part in determining how content is adjudicated.”

Twitter, another popular news source, was recently acquired for $44 billion by Elon Musk. Musk plans on loosening the safeguards put in place on its platform against disinformation, citing the First Amendment’s “freedom of speech”.

PEN America’s Suzanne Nossel notes, “All eyes are on Elon Musk to see whether he goes through with pledges to dismantle content guardrails and call open season for disinformation, harassment and vitriol on Twitter, or is serious about trying to nurture a platform where actual civic discourse can flourish. I’ll be watching for early signs of whether he comes in thinking he has all the answers, or is instead ready to listen and learn the intricacies of a platform used worldwide with sometimes life or death consequences. With the midterm election next week, a pivotal indicator will be whether purveyors of disinformation are given free rein to mislead people over Twitter about when, where and how to vote.”