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TikTok is the most popular news source for 12 to 15-year-olds, says Ofcom (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 100 points 3 years ago (7 children)

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

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  • [–] 57 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    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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  • [–] 13 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    You realize that Lemmy is social media right?

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    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.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    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?

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