TikTok is the most popular news source for 12 to 15-year-olds, says Ofcom

That's terrifying. Not even because the source is a Chinese company, it's that it's a social media company and not a trustworthy source

Do you think they're watching news videos on TikTok? It's just where they hear their peers talk about stuff.

And the article has a graph showing those same kids (from the UK btw) use BBC as their most common news source. It's just they broke down "BBC" into a bunch of subcategories till a social media company was #1.

Because "12-15 year olds in the UK use the UK's largest news organization as their source for news" wouldn't get many clicks.
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And adults get their news from Facebook.
You realize that Lemmy is social media right?
- Lemmy is a way of life
- Much harder to manipulate a decentralized system and inject propaganda and misinformation than it is a centralized one with ties to the local government.
I view TT as a platform, not a source as a whole. There are absolutely great sources of news on TT. And honestly, I’d rather have one good quality source that can get me a daily rundown of headlines in a 3 minute or less video than spend hours watching headlines like you would on a 24 hour news channel.
- yes, same. I am way north of being teenager, but after reddit crapped out, my social media usage is like 80% tiktok and the rest lemmy.
  
  Also have lost any trust i had left in the BBC, with their targeted hate campaigns against minorities and constant right wing grift. So i rather follow few serious creators on TikTok than any professional journalist from the mainstream British press.
Sinclair media is equally disturbing, but very few people question the reach it has into American homes.

Not to mention the consolidation of the rest of the news landscape.

There's several levels of trust here. I don't trust TikTok to serve me anything critical of China, and I know they tend to downshift certain lifestyle creators. But I trust TikTok to give me better on the ground information about a current/emergent event than I do our American corporate media companies, who regularly black out certain topics with near impunity.
- I worked for a TV station that got bought by Sinclair. I will say this repeatedly and with my whole chest:
  
  Fuck Sinclair. Easily the worst employer I’ve ever had. They are the scummiest of the scummiest media companies. I can accept putting profit over everything, that’s capitalism. They seemed to go out of their way to do things in the least moral way, even if it cost them money. Fuck them. They are the modern face of evil in America.
People have been eating shit from sources like the Sun UK tabloid for decades. I don't think tiktok is stellar and I think governments should enforce local governance on the platform (i.e. local servers and executives). But is it a new terrifying thing?
Previously on X-Men: Reddit was my primary news source

And by "news" we mean "whatever dumb shit an 'influencer' has come up with today to move clicks."

when I was that age, I didn't even have a favorite news source. I just didn't care about news at all, only video games. of course I wouldn't look for "cool" stuff in the newspapers, even then.
One of the first interactions I had with tiktok was when a woman went viral for doing a dance video with some pop song and had text running along the screen about the death of her abusive husband. It was so weird seeing this grown woman do a kids dance to some Kpop song while text is detailing who he beat her. All put on public display forever.

Social media does weird things to people's brains man.

A demographic notoriously known for being well informed. /s

I mean, at that age I started getting interested in politics and worldnews.
- And would you consider your past self to have been well informed?
eh.. what demographic is well informed these days?...
- Probably people who seek out political groups on the Internet and don't lean far right.

Chairman Pooh must be pleased that his propagandists now have unfettered access to the worlds largest repository of “Five Nights at Freddy’s” knowledge.

39% use some form of the BBC compared to 28% using TikTok.

The study found that for children aged 12-15, TikTok is now the most used single source of news across all platforms at 28%, followed by YouTube and Instagram at 25% each. However, the BBC still has the highest reach of any news organisation among this age group when all its news outlets – across BBC iPlayer, radio stations, websites and TV channels – are counted, at 39%.

That's something of a relief, but 28% is still more than enough to be concerning.
- Only if it's their only source of news, and even this clickbait article doesn't attempt to claim that.
  
  What's more likely is social media is the first place they hear of something, then they go to an actual news organization for details.
  
  Which is ironic because so many (presumably) adults in this thread just read a headline on social media and then believed it instead of taking two seconds to read the article that's a click away.
- I mean, it's no worse than getting your news from Facebook.

I'm not sure how informed any 13 year old is, so this doesn't concern me - what concerns me is that most 12-15 year olds are just putting in massive hours on this nonsense. My partner's 13 yr old spends, no exaggeration, 8 hours/day on TikTok. If not more. I just started looking at access time on my pi-hole and router out of curiosity and it is disturbing. He is not an outlier.

I remember chatting on MSN/mIRC and playing video games for that same amount of time in my teens. But somehow I feel that was more mentally stimulating than TikTok.
- because you were interacting. not passively consuming.

Unfortunately other generations have fully caught up with Boomers and all the garbage news they get from Facebook. It's best to teach young people early that any news they read from social media sites (including the one we are currently on) requires a great deal of due diligence to verify. I am not plugging Ground News as an ad, but I have found it a very good resource to get multiple perspectives on the same story.

I remember being 13-15 and not caring at all what the news was. Better times, I think

I’m 35 and I still don’t really care about the news. Not looking at all the misery keeps me a little more sane.
- Honestly I think this is probably one of the many secrets to long-term happiness. Ignorance is bliss, as they say

Most popular fake news source. Dude a generation of dummies to come.

Honestly my concern is moreso what this means for how much exposure kids have to this social media. This is really concerning, they shouldn't be on any social media for this long.

Aaaand now I feel like a boomer complaining about phones. For their sakes, I hope I'm just out of touch.

I mean depends on how old you are but before tiktok, kids were getting their views from youtube. I think the ship has sailed since social media has been a part of child or I guess more accurately teen development for nearly 20 years now. Like in those days it was friendster, myspace, etc causing drama.

I'm not here to say its great either just that the target has been moving for the past 20 years now.
The problem is the Boomers were actually right about the "phones", but they also succumbed to it and are just as addicted as everyone else now. It's not just news either. People are shifting views massively on mental health through social media sharing with people who are either nefariously sharing damaging content, or are doing so unknowingly. I see that one as a possibly larger issue in the long term than even the news one.

Sadly, that is the worst platfom to look for anything. It's mostly just a bunch of freaks seeking validation.

Do you expect 12-15 year olds to read the newspaper? Chances are you get your own news from social media. I don't give a single fuck if a 13 year old even keeps up with the news. In fact, I'd prefer they didn't.

12-15 year olds might not know what a newspaper is.
Is the newspaper any better anyways? It's full of bias / lies manipulative crap too.

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My kids are 3 and 4. I have no idea if TikTok is still relevant when they're 14, but if not I'm sure there will be something else equally suspicious and toxic like TikTok is now. I hope I can teach them how to look at this stuff with its self esteem crushing and political aspects.

What were the most popular news sources for that demo in the past? Facebook? MySpace? Sunday morning cartoons? When has that demographic ever had a 'most popular news source'?

Also! The very first graph actually shows the BBC rated 10% higher than tiktok, but that's not click bait enough, so they separated the BBC into subcategories so they could say tiktok was highest 🤦‍♂️

Is there any unbiased high quality news source anyways?

The Guardian and the Economist is what I hear recommended
yes
The Onion is the most reliable news source

Lmmfao!

Had a feeling.

You should read the article then.

Because the headline and your feeling are wrong.