TikTok is primarily known for short-form video sharing, but it has also become a common place for many people to get news. A fifth of U.S. adults regularly get news on TikTok, according to a Pew Research Center survey from August. That share is unchanged from 2025 but up from just 3% in 2020.
| U.S. adults | Ages 18-29 | 30-49 | 50-64 | 65+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 3 | 9 | 2 | 1 | <1 |
| 2021 | 6 | 18 | 6 | 3 | 1 |
| 2022 | 10 | 26 | 10 | 4 | 1 |
| 2023 | 14 | 32 | 15 | 7 | 3 |
| 2024 | 17 | 39 | 19 | 9 | 3 |
| 2025 | 20 | 43 | 25 | 10 | 3 |
| 2026 | 20 | 39 | 25 | 11 | 4 |
Younger adults are especially likely to regularly get news on TikTok. Among Americans ages 18 to 29, around four-in-ten (39%) say they do this regularly. That compares with 25% of those ages 30 to 49, 11% of those ages 50 to 64 and 4% of those ages 65 and older.
Black and Hispanic Americans are more likely than White and Asian Americans to get news on TikTok. Roughly a third of Black (32%) and Hispanic (35%) adults regularly get news there, compared with 14% of both White and Asian adults.
There are also partisan differences. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (22%) are slightly more likely than Republicans and GOP leaners (15%) to regularly get news on TikTok.
TikTok is one of the more widely used social media platforms in the United States. Overall, 37% of Americans say they use TikTok. That trails the shares who use YouTube (84%), Facebook (70%) and Instagram (51%). But more U.S. adults say they use TikTok than WhatsApp (33%), LinkedIn (31%), Reddit (25%) or X (18%).
Looking specifically at U.S. adults who use TikTok, 53% say they regularly get news on the platform. That’s about the same as the share who said this in 2025 (55%) but well above the 22% who did so in 2020. Today, the share of TikTok users who get news there is similar to the shares of Facebook users (57%) and X users (57%) who regularly get news on those sites, and higher than the shares among users of other social media platforms.
| YouTube | TikTok | X (Twitter) | Nextdoor | Rumble | Truth Social | Bluesky | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 54 | 32 | 28 | 22 | 59 | 42 | 15 | 13 | ||||
| 2021 | 47 | 30 | 27 | 29 | 55 | 39 | 14 | 14 | ||||
| 2022 | 44 | 30 | 29 | 33 | 53 | 37 | 23 | 13 | 10 | |||
| 2023 | 43 | 32 | 34 | 43 | 53 | 38 | 28 | 17 | 12 | |||
| 2024 | 48 | 37 | 40 | 52 | 59 | 33 | 27 | 14 | 16 | 48 | 57 | |
| 2025 | 53 | 41 | 41 | 55 | 57 | 35 | 33 | 15 | 49 | 55 | 38 | |
| 2026 | 57 | 41 | 46 | 53 | 57 | 35 | 45 | 20 | 16 | 53 | 55 | 39 |
Note: This is an update of a post originally published Nov. 15, 2023. Here are the questions used for this analysis, the topline and the survey methodology.
