Poll: More turning to TikTok for news in US

Although TikTok faces a potential ban in the United States, that prospect hasn't stopped an increasing number of Americans from turning to the platform for news.

About 4 in 10 young adults in the US now regularly get news on TikTok, according to a Pew Research Center analysis published on Tuesday.

In four years, the share of adults who say they regularly get news from the short-form video-sharing platform has grown about fivefold, from 3 percent in 2020 to 17 percent in 2024, Pew found.

Since 2020, "no social media platform we've studied has seen faster growth in the share of Americans who regularly turn to it for news", said the press release by Pew.

The Pew Research Center, based in Washington DC, is "a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world", according to its website.

TikTok is popular among teenagers — 63 percent of whom report using the platform — and young adults.

Earlier this year, Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation, signed in April by US President Joe Biden, to force a TikTok sale or ownership divestiture by January.

TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance Ltd, based in Beijing.

Washington politicians have argued that TikTok shares user data with the Chinese government.

TikTok has repeatedly denied the accusation and has maintained that it stores user data on servers based in the US.

Today, 39 percent of adults under 30 say they regularly get news on TikTok, compared with shares of adults ages 30 to 49 (19 percent), 50 to 64 (9 percent) and 65 and older (3 percent), according to the survey conducted from July 15 to Aug 4 of more than 10,650 US adults.

Around half of TikTok users (52 percent) now say they regularly get news there, up from 43 percent last year and 22 percent in 2020.

TikTok users are now more likely to get news from TikTok than Facebook users are to get news from Facebook. TikTok users are less likely than users of X (formerly Twitter) to get news on the site, the survey found.

Pew published another survey earlier this month that found support for a TikTok ban in the US was declining.

The share of Americans who support the US government banning TikTok stood at 32 percent in that survey, down from 38 percent in the fall of 2023 and 50 percent in March 2023.

Meanwhile, 28 percent of Americans oppose a ban, up from 22 percent in March 2023. The share who say they are uncertain whether the government should ban TikTok also has risen, from 28 percent in March 2023 to 39 percent now.

On Monday, a lawyer for TikTok and ByteDance looked to convince a federal appeals court to block the law — which would ban the app used by 170 million Americans as soon as Jan 19 — arguing that it violates free speech rights.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard two hours of arguments in the lawsuit, which was filed by TikTok and ByteDance in May, seeking an injunction, Reuters reported.

US Justice Department lawyer Daniel Tenny contended that TikTok poses a national security threat because of its access to personal data, asserting that China can covertly manipulate information that Americans consume.

Andrew Pincus, the lawyer for TikTok and ByteDance, told the judges that the US government had not demonstrated that TikTok poses national security risks. Pincus also argued that the law violates the US Constitution on numerous grounds, including running afoul of First Amendment protections against government abridgment of speech.

"The law before this court is unprecedented, and its effect would be staggering," Pincus said, adding that "for the first time in history, Congress has expressly targeted a specific US speaker banning its speech and the speech of 170 million Americans".

The law gives ByteDance until Jan 19 to sell or divest TikTok's US assets.

TikTok and ByteDance have argued that if the statute is upheld, it would show that Congress can circumvent the First Amendment "by invoking national security and ordering the publisher of any individual newspaper or website to sell to avoid being shut down".

The law also prohibits app stores like Apple and Google from offering TikTok and bars internet hosting services from supporting it unless ByteDance divests TikTok by the deadline. The president could extend the deadline by three months if he certifies ByteDance is making significant progress toward a sale.

TikTok and the Justice Department have asked for a ruling by Dec 6, which could allow the US Supreme Court to consider any appeal before a ban takes effect.

During negotiations with the Biden administration more than two years ago, TikTok presented the government with a draft 90-page agreement that allows a third party to monitor the platform's algorithm, content moderation practices and other programming, The Associated Press reported. But it said a deal was not reached because government officials essentially walked away from the negotiating table in August 2022.

The case is playing out less than two months before the Nov 5 US presidential election.

Republican candidate Donald Trump and Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, are active on TikTok. The Trump administration previously sought a sale of TikTok but Trump now opposes a ban.

Agencies contributed to this story.