TikTok Becomes a Popular News Source in the US, Survey Finds

TapTechNews June 13, a latest survey on American news habits reveals that as TikTok becomes a more popular news source for Americans, younger users increasingly believe that the platform can provide information that was previously inaccessible to them.

A survey released by the Pew Research Center on Wednesday analyzed the role played by major social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X in Americans' access to news information. The survey results show that TikTok is the second-largest social media platform for obtaining news in the US after the X platform.

However, most users do not consider TikTok, which mainly features short videos, as a primary news source. The survey shows that only 15% of TikTok users said that one of the main reasons they use the app is to get news. But at the same time, 35% of respondents said that some of the news they see through TikTok is something they have never seen before. Unlike other social media apps, the news information sources that TikTok users see may come from internet celebrities or celebrities, or even more often from strangers they don't know. In contrast, the news that Facebook and Instagram users see mostly comes from content posted by friends, family or people they know; while on the X platform, users are more likely to see news reports posted by media organizations or journalists.

Although most users do not take getting news as the main purpose of using TikTok, the Pew Research Center survey indicates that the popularity of TikTok as a news source is on the rise, and at the same time, legislators are also increasingly concerned about the information content that users see on this app. TapTechNews previously reported that in April this year, US President Joe Biden signed a bill that requires ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to divest the ownership of this app within one year, or it will be banned from operating in the US.