News organisations in Japan (31%), Italy (29%), Denmark (27%), and Bulgaria (7%) have been slower to move onto the platform. The vast majority of Indonesian (90%), Australian (89%), Spanish (86%), French (86%), and UK (81%) publishers operate active accounts on TikTok, along with more than three-quarters in the United States (US) (77%), and around two-thirds in Brazil (68%).

Publisher adoption is not evenly spread.3 A large proportion of these have joined TikTok in the last year. Around half (49%) of top news publishers are now regularly publishing content on TikTok – based on lists drawn from our 2022 Digital News Report covering 44 markets.Given the number of publishers now involved – and the speed of change – this report should not be seen as a comprehensive picture of publisher activity, rather a snapshot that we hope contains insights that will be useful to news organisations, regulators, and researchers. We have tracked the extent of publisher activity across more than 40 countries, one of the first attempts to do this, and interviewed some of the most successful news organisations such as the Washington Post, Sky News, and Le Monde about their motivations and key learnings.Īs this fast-moving platform matures and grows, we have also identified areas in which TikTok itself may need to focus more on publisher concerns about the quality and range of news content provided and the transparency of take down rules. Partly for these reasons, in this report we focus mainly on the production of content for TikTok by publishers, as well as some independent news creators. Understanding the nature of news on any social platform is a huge endeavour given the highly personalised nature of the experience and the limited availability of public data. 1 Qualitative studies of younger consumers show that although TikTok is loved for its humour and engaging presentation, many worry about the credibility of the information they see there and the potential for misinformation and disinformation. Changes to the platform, enabling longer videos and the promotion of live streams, have also made TikTok more attractive for news publishers looking to engage younger audiences.ĭespite this, our Reuters Institute Digital News Report research suggests that news on TikTok is still mostly generated by social media influencers, activists, or ordinary people rather than by journalists.

Until recently the network had a reputation built almost exclusively on fast-moving, funny or musical memes, but stories such as Black Lives Matter, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine have helped make news a much bigger part of the mix. TikTok is currently one of the world’s fastest-growing social networks with its addictive algorithm surfacing an endless stream of short, entertaining videos.

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