TikTok is used by 7% of adults for news, according to the UK’s communications watchdog, up from 1% in 2020. Growth is mainly driven by young users, with half of news followers aged 16 to 24 years. chart – TikTok was the UK’s fastest growing news source from 2020 to 2022 Ofcom’s annual report on news consumption in the UK found that for 12-15 year olds, Instagram has dethroned BBC One and BBC Two as the most popular news sources among teenagers, followed by TikTok and YouTube. “Teenagers today are increasingly unlikely to pick up a newspaper or tune in to TV news, preferring instead to keep up-to-date by scrolling through their social feeds,” said Ofcom group director of strategy and research Yih-Choung Teh. “And while young people view news on social media as less trustworthy, they rate these services higher for providing a range of opinions on the day’s current stories.” Ofcom’s study found that news organizations have to compete with non-journalist TikTokers as a source of news on the platform. For those who consume news on TikTok, their main source is other people they follow (44%), followed by friends and family (32%) and then news organizations (24%). The most popular official news sources on TikTok include Sky News, BBC and ITV. chart TikTok is now the sixth most used news source among young adults TikTok has more than 1 billion users worldwide and is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese technology company. Its power as a news source came to the fore during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the White House briefing 30 influential TikTokers on the war. Despite TikTok’s growth in the UK as a news source, it appears to be lagging behind in the US. A quarter of US adults say they always use TikTok to get news, with nearly half of US millennial and Gen Z adults – under 41 and under 25 respectively – indicating the same, according to the company analysis by Forrester Research. There have also been warnings that the platform was prone to misinformation and disinformation during the conflict, with examples including video game clips being passed off as real footage and videos being mislabeled to give the impression that Russia was ready for a nuclear attack. Misinformation is the intentional distribution of false information intended to harm, while disinformation is when false information is shared but no harm is intended. chart TikTok is now one of the three most used news sources for younger teens The app also became a hugely popular source of coverage of Johnny Depp’s defamation case against his ex-wife Amber Heard in the US, with videos on the platform appearing to lean heavily in favor of Depp, who eventually won the case . On TikTok videos posted with the hashtag #JusticeForJohnnyDepp gained more than 20 billion views in two months, while the derogatory #AmberTurd had billions of views. Nic Newman, senior research fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study Journalism, said the institute’s own research showed that TikTok was not being used as a platform for serious news. “Even young people, for the most part, don’t see it as a platform for serious news. But they see it as a good place to get celebrity news or non-life and death news. They will often use TikTok in conjunction with traditional news when something really big is happening like the war in Ukraine,” he said. Ofcom research found that only three in 10 people who use TikTok for news see it as a reliable source. Fanbytes, a UK-based Gen Z marketing firm, said TikTok creators like Matt Welland and Dylan Page are making news “more accessible”. “Tiktok should not be seen only as an entertainment platform. It’s actively involved in popular culture, with people using the platform to keep up with social movements and news,” said Emily Hall, campaign manager at Fanbytes. A TikTok spokesperson said the platform was a place where “millions of people come to be entertained and learn”, adding: “We want everyone who uses TikTok to have access to good and accurate information, which is why the community guidelines make it clear to us that we do not allow harmful misinformation.’ Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Ofcom’s report shows, however, that TikTok lags far behind conventional news sources, and in particular a strong social network station. BBC One remains the most popular news source among adults (53%), followed by ITV (35%) and then Facebook (32%), which remains the most popular social media news source (32%). Among newspapers, the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday are the most popular (15%), followed by the Guardian and Observer (10%). Ofcom found that younger age groups are much more likely to use the internet and social media for news, while their older counterparts prefer print, radio and television.
