14% US adults now regularly get news on TikTok: Pew report

In just three years, the share of US adults who say they regularly get news from Chinese short-form video platform TikTok has more than quadrupled — from 3 per cent in 2020 to 14 per cent in 2023, a new report has shown.

A growing share of US adults say they regularly get news on TikTok. This is in contrast with many other social media sites, where news consumption has either declined or stayed about the same in recent years, according to a new poll from Pew Research.

“TikTok has become especially popular among teens — two-thirds of whom report using the platform — as well as young adults,” the report noted.

Among adults, those aged 18 to 29 are most likely to say they regularly get news on TikTok. About a third of Americans in this age group (32 per cent) say they regularly get news there, a higher share than in previous years. 

This compares with 15 per cent of those aged 30 to 49, 7 per cent of those aged 50 to 64 and just 3 per cent of those aged 65 and older.

More of TikTok’s adult users are getting news there as well. Currently, 43 per cent of TikTok users say they regularly get news on the site, up from 33 per cent who said the same in 2022. 

“TikTok users are now just as likely to get news from TikTok as Facebook users are to get news from Facebook. Still, TikTok users are less likely than users of X, formerly Twitter, to get news on the site,” the report noted.