TikTok is nothing short of a powerhouse of digital culture. Its popularity has skyrocketed since the onset of the pandemic, where the app was downloaded over 300 million times in the first financial quarter of 2020 and shows little signs of slowing. Almost three years on, the app continues to define the most relevant memes, trends, music, and slang of any given time, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who hasn’t found themselves in the addictive clutches of the ‘For You Page’.
Where the readership flocks, the news will inevitably follow. News journalism has already started to carve out its space on TikTok, and with the UK alone having upwards of 17 million active users, it is hardly shocking that the app is the fastest-growing news source for UK adults. Many news channels are churning out micro-news reports on the app, adapting content to the same quick and snappy format that defines the TikTok user experience.
This seemingly inconsequential development in news production has a sinister underbelly. TikTok is warping how we engage with news and is a case for why we must remain wary of increasingly algorithm-driven social media platforms.
Like so many other twentysomethings, I would rather not admit how many hours a week I spend glued to TikTok. I barely have time to tune into TV news anymore, relying instead on the fact that stories will find me through a TikTok video or Twitter notification, keeping me informed with minimal effort.
The past few years have had their fair share of harrowing news stories, such as the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Like many others, I watched my tiny screen in horror as distressing footage of international conflict exploded onto my ‘For You Page’, and with the flick of a finger, I scrolled away. But the more I scrolled, the more of it appeared – rather than me following the news, the news seemed to be following me, sandwiched between Charli D’Amelio lip-syncing and several cat videos. I cared about the war and wanted to keep up as it unfolded, but this felt wrong. My choice to engage with this content was out of my hands; it appeared with little warning, and I could get rid of it from my screen just as fast as it had appeared.
I am raising the question of whether TikTok can ever be an appropriate platform for news consumption. When done right, it can bring up-to-date information to anyone’s fingertips. Newsreaders such as Victoria Derbyshire and CNN’s Max Foster have routinely gone viral for their short-form reports, filmed in selfie mode, creating intimate and direct connections with audiences. Newsreaders are no longer only sitting behind desks in suits and confined to our TVs; reporting is becoming more accessible than ever.
Yet adapting news to the TikTok format has its pitfalls: squeezed into a rushed and intense video clip and dispersed in and amongst trivial and mundane content. Some accounts have managed to maintain a professional edge to their reporting but many others have tied news reading in with music and dance trends in an attempt to go viral and grow likes and comments exponentially. Vying for an audience’s attention is nothing new in journalism, but portraying news content in this way trivialises it. Stories of great significance are wedged into the noisy, saturated media environment of TikTok, and encountering news in this way desensitises us.
Anyone can go viral on TikTok, and the app is now home to thousands of news accounts. Often reporting on underrepresented and creative topics, these creators enrich and challenge our traditional media environment. Yet TikTok has deep regulation problems. With just a brief scroll, you can expect to come across barely concealed sponsored content, a wealth of fake news and live streams showing questionable and harmful footage.
Guidelines by Ofcom already indicate that moving images are particularly potent in engaging, influencing, and even harming audiences, leading most broadcast media to be regulated by statute. As audiences move away from television and invest time into social media platforms such as TikTok, it is clear that this form of receiving information has audiences hooked. However, the impact regulations guiding broadcast production – designed to protect privacy rights, the welfare of children and the vulnerable, and halt the onslaught of fake news – is losing its grip.
Press regulation is already a sticky subject, worsened even further as media consumption shifts to environments wholly controlled by independent corporations, driven by profit and arguably insufficiently regulated.
Walk to the newsagents, switch on the TV, or open a tab on Google, and we have the freedom to navigate, engage with, or refuse to read the news we encounter. In this lively and diverse media environment, being able to make an active choice on where we get our information is crucial in shaping our critical skills. On Twitter, we can still view what is trending and have our pick of a diverse range of news from a multitude of sources.
We cannot say the same for TikTok. The algorithm is designed to feed us the news it thinks we want to read from the sources it believes resonate with us the most. Tiktok has reportedly admitted that the algorithm shields users from content which does not align with their political views. The result is often an ideological echo chamber, or “epistemic bubbles”, where individuals cannot access accurate information and consider opposing arguments. Even if encountering a particularly concerning headline may make us shudder, facing these opposing views is vital to maintaining our ability to assess and critically engage with online material.
News consumption via the algorithm-driven ‘For You Page’ of TikTok threatens to shape an ever-polarised readership, shielded from the process of deliberation and the information necessary to refine their views.
The case for why TikTok is harmful for news consumption speaks more widely to the issue of the negative impact of social media as a whole. Not enough is being done by app developers or lawmakers, to intercept the harms produced by such advanced algorithm technology. The influence of TikTok and other apps will continue to rise unstoppably and bring more of us under its spell. It is impossible to have a healthy relationship with consuming news in a TikTok format.
News does not belong on TikTok and should not be at the whims of the algorithm, nor should it be in the format of something we can simply swipe away amid an entire sensory social media overload, fuelling further our dissociation and detachment. But in a way, it seems a powerless move to try and stop this onslaught. TikTok has us in its clutches, and where we go, news journalism will always follow.