Social Media Now Main Source of News In US, Research Suggests (bbc.com) 168
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Social media and video networks have become the main source of news in the US, overtaking traditional TV channels and news websites, research suggests. More than half (54%) of people get news from networks like Facebook, X and YouTube -- overtaking TV (50%) and news sites and apps (48%), according to the Reuters Institute. "The rise of social media and personality-based news is not unique to the United States, but changes seem to be happening faster -- and with more impact -- than in other countries," a report found. Podcaster Joe Rogan was the most widely-seen personality, with almost a quarter (22%) of the population saying they had come across news or commentary from him in the previous week. The report's author Nic Newman said the rise of social video and personality-driven news "represents another significant challenge for traditional publishers." Other key findings from the report include:
- TikTok is the fastest-growing social and video platform, now used for news by 17% globally (up 4% from last year).
- AI chatbot use for news is increasing, especially among under-25s, where it's twice as popular as in the general population.
- Most people believe AI will reduce transparency, accuracy, and trust in news.
- Across all age groups, trusted news brands with proven accuracy remain valued, even if used less frequently.
- TikTok is the fastest-growing social and video platform, now used for news by 17% globally (up 4% from last year).
- AI chatbot use for news is increasing, especially among under-25s, where it's twice as popular as in the general population.
- Most people believe AI will reduce transparency, accuracy, and trust in news.
- Across all age groups, trusted news brands with proven accuracy remain valued, even if used less frequently.
Oh dear (Score:5, Interesting)
When everybody's perception of reality is different, nobody can agree on any hard fact and society unravels.
Re:Oh dear (Score:5, Insightful)
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Once the mainstream media lost its trustworthiness, every news source is credible now, pretty much. How can you tell what is actually a true, honest first-hand source versus someone adding fake smoke via Photoshop, showing images from a previous time, or just AI generated stuff? How can one regain a "chain of custody" from firsthand witnesses and firsthand evidence through the news aggregators, without it being diluted or chopped up into just tiny bits of truth surrounded by large amounts of propaganda?
No
Re: Oh dear (Score:3)
Yes, some kind of cryptographic proof that something wasn't altered would go a long way, especially with images, video and audio content. You don't necessarily need to trust the author, only that the device signed the file with a non-extractible private key. The public key should be tied to the device, eg. with an X.509 certificate.
Most smartphones can already create such private keys. But you still need some secure enrollment protocol to make sure only the corresponding public keys/certs are published, and
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Very new cameras from Nikon, Canon and Sony can sign photos. They announced a joint digital watermarking scheme about 18 months ago. As you observe, the extent to which it's possible to trust that the private keys haven't leaked is another matter.
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Read Dr. Neal Krawetz's "Hacker Factor" blog [hackerfactor.com] for insight into the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA [c2pa.org]). If C2PA is deployed in its current state, it can lead to incredibly serious problems.
Nikon will continue to incorporate new elements of the evolving C2PA specifications [nikon.com]
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It is perhaps relevant to consider that the mainstream media lost its credibility not due to significant failings in the media to present reliable and accurate reporting, but instead due to a concerted campaign on multiple fronts, conducted by multiple parties, to falsely claim that the actually trustworthy sources were somehow untrustworthy.
Or perhaps it only seems relevant to me.
Re: Oh dear (Score:2)
No, it was when journalists decided they needed to be partipants instead of impartial reporters.
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A long time ago, I was a poor college student. One of the things I did to fund my life was freelance journalism (which was really just selling stories to a few local sources and hoping stuff went out of the wire and was picked up elsewhere).
So, I got the job and then decided to learn about journalism. One of the things I learned was that I should never use words like 'I", "me", "myself", or even things like "this reporter". This was a solid 40+ years ago.
Anyhow, as you can see, that has changed quite a bit.
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Re:Oh dear (Score:4, Insightful)
There's also the problem of many people not trusting main stream media sources to practice actual journalism.
I wish people didn't trust Fox.
Re:Oh dear (Score:4, Informative)
I wish people didn't trust Fox.
Why is this flamebait? Fox is the biggest and they recently paid out close to a billion dollars because they were pushing a false story about voting machines.
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Then you definitely believe fake news.
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Then you'll be confident when you finally get to try.
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I guess no different than those fans of MSNBC and to some extent CNN, eh?
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It's not clear whether people do trust Fox that much.
We know they do, because they frequently repeat things they heard there as if they were fact. Perhaps they confuse that chemical response with truthiness.
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I notice some strange moderation efforts on a number of posts, almost as if someone wants negative views of Fox (and other right-wing media outlets) to be suppressed.
It's also evident that somebody with mod points doesn't realize that the existence of a biased FOX outlet means that folks can't also know that there are media outlets that are biased to the left. No, I think people aware of the misinformation/biases are well aware that there are biased media outlets on either side. At least I'd like to think s
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Re:Oh dear (Score:4, Informative)
Speaking as someone very familiar with small-town America where there is no shortage of rural folk, there is absolutely misplaced trust for Fox News. And these people aren't getting information from anywhere else, so when large protests like Saturday happen, they just don't understand or go with the line they've been given: that they're all "paid protesters" never stopping to think that paid protesters probably aren't going to be standing around on the corner of 1st and Main in a town of 6,000 people - most people interested in paying protesters want those protesters seen by news cameras and such, and nobody is sending a TV crew to Farmville when a top-25 metro area with 10,000+ people protesting within blocks of the TV station studios.
Literally people driving past, asking every single person "Are you paid to be here?" never challenging that insidious lie with a mote of critical thinking. And when asking people why they are there, answering "well I don't see any of that on Fox..."
It's a god damn propaganda network. Someone could probably write a hell of a research paper centered around the idea that Fox actually shows less actual video of the President saying things than other networks do, because the President says such stupid shit that there is no way to put lipstick on that pig. So they paraphrase instead, or have a talking head explain it away. And then pivot to having an actual fascist from his advisors (Stephen Miller and the like) come on and quickly change the subject by railing on about how migrants are responsible for every bad thing in the world.
Re: Oh dear (Score:2)
The trustworthy news media train derailed when Walter Cronkite left.
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Uncle "Walt" had a good bit of bias back in his day too.....
Sorry, but no (Score:2)
I'm old enough to have watched Walter... he was not honest nor was he unbiased, but most did not know it because at the time there were only 3 (or fewer) channels in most places in America. Most Americans believed what they saw on the TV news, and concluded it was right because all the channels agreed on all the main points.
Walter Cronkite was a close friend of the Kennedys; he regularly stayed overnight with them and often went sailing with them, but the public knew little to nothing about this relationshi
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Let's take a look at last election (Score:3, Insightful)
Donald Trump stopped a town hall meeting 20 minutes in and then proceeded to awkwardly dance to his iPod playlist for the next 40 minutes. This was reported as a cozy event that brought him closer to voters.
I think people have figured out that the news media is now 120% corporate-owned without them even having to know about the d
Re:Let's take a look at last election (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine thinking you've insulated yourself from "corporate media" by following fark.com links.
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Imagine thinking that added anything constructive to the conversation.
Focus on the argument, not the man.
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I've read previous posts by you.
Unless you can delete them all you probably shouldn't be responding to this one... the fact you can't see the irony here is not a new thing, but it's increasingly alienating.
Feel free to explain that actually your opinion is right because the thing you predicted didn't happen, so that means that people agree with your political position. Again.
Re:Let's take a look at last election (Score:4, Interesting)
PBS News Hour is pretty solid. ...So of course Trump is cutting funding to it. It is a solid news source though.
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What makes you say that? How much PBS News Hour have you watched recently?
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I tend to flip through all the news shows/channels I can on almost a daily basis....
I"ll admit tt's likely been a month or so, last time I tuned into the news programs on PBS, but I find they like NPR are usually quite leftist slanted much of the time.
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Have you considered what you call "left" is more a reflection upon your biases and environment and limitations? It always was a relative term from position into a political seating arrangement in France to the almost meaningless brand name it is today which is less relative and more a moving target set by whomever has the most $$$ influence.
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Fark stopped being fun when some loon tried to get me fired.
It didn't work, by the way.
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When has it ever been different? People have always read different newspapers, listened to different radio stations, watched different TV channels.
I remember very clearly how reporting on basically every major source I could find about the Great Touhoku Earthquake and nuclear meltdowns in Japan seemingly had very little basis in reality, compared to what I was experiencing on the ground at the time. There never was a golden age of accurate reporting, it's always been this bad.
What has changed is now people
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This is only happening because the "official" news channels do not tell the truth anymore. They hide LOTS of information from the people. Social media is kind of democratizing the news because of these conditions; however, it leaves lots of room for bad actors to sway public opinion.
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Also: this is why everything is so fucked up. We're getting "news" from random people on the street rather than from any kind of organization that cares about legitimacy, reputation, and if something is true or not.
shocker (Score:5, Interesting)
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On most news sites these days it's difficult to claw your way through all the ads to get to the paywall,
Have you seen Facebook recently? The entire internet is a cesspool of ads. Heck the top half of Slashdot looks fucked on my work machine since we don't have adblockers on here.
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On most news sites these days it's difficult to claw your way through all the ads to get to the paywall, and on the off chance you make it through that it's literally just the same blurb that every other site has.
Just about any newspaper or news network site now is either paywalled, or a defacto browser hijacker that floods you with pop-ups, videos, and subscription requests as soon as you enter.
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On most news sites these days it's difficult to claw your way through all the ads to get to the paywall, and on the off chance you make it through that it's literally just the same blurb that every other site has. And the real articles are sandwiched between a stack of "paid content" which are essentially just more ads disguised as articles that if clicked take you to an even more ad infested site. There's a few exceptions of course, but they are increasingly hard to find and the average person doesn't want news they want someone "important" to deliver a daily dose of reinforcement to their belief systems.
These are all clean and nearly what you get in print. People complain about the quality of journalism or a website, but they refuse to pay for it, or just simply choose something of better quality.
www.wsj.com
www.nytimes.com
www.washingtonpost.com
It's like people are going to McDonald's instead of Burger King because their burgers suck... when there's an In-N-Out next door. The fuck is wrong with people, that's not even.. it doesn't make sense. You wrote a whole paragraph on how "most" hamburgers suck and fri
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The real problem is I don't want to spend the money for a full subscription to every news source I read occasionally.
Apple's subscription news aggregator service, News+ is great for that kind of thing.
I don't know how shared links works though because I've never been on the other end of it without a subscription. I think friends with Apple accounts without the subscription have been able to view them mostly but maybe it depends on who's article it is too.
I think Google News has a subscription too, or will be getting one eventually. Sounds like they use free article limits for now, but at least it gets you through some pay
What a great news source (Score:5, Insightful)
The loudest loudmouth is the source of truth. That's what this means. This is how you get this sequence:
Time for an election.
Candidate A: hardworking successful and respected prosecutor, Senator, and Vice President. Exemplary record of promoting health care, voting rights, and reducing gun violence and crime. Full understanding and adherence to the rule of law. Well educated. Articulate as a court officer should be.
Candidate B: Convicted felon of over 30 counts, with indictments for around 50 more. Impeached twice for betraying the country and his oath of office. A known sex offender. Party to over 3500 lawsuits in private business (that would be about one a week over 30 years). Known con-man and grifter, surrounded by like minded cronies. Tells so many lies a national newspaper tried to count them all and eventually just gave up. Shows no deep comprehension of any subject matter without his name embedded in it. Ran a campaign based on retribution and weaponizing the government for political purposes. That turns out to be one of the few things he didn't lie about.
Voting public, steeped in social media: Of Course Candidate B! Candidate A laughs funny. Candidate B is a Man's Man who Tells It Like It Is! He's going to hurt the people I want to hurt. And look how f**king mad those snooty liberals are. Look at this meme I could die laughing.
And there you have it. I realize that I am probably going to be moderated Troll for this post because they will think the above is a political rant and not a recitation of objective fact. Or, more likely, they will pretend because they don't like those facts. So this will be a demonstration of how social media works.
Before Elon musk bought Twitter (Score:2, Flamebait)
But up until then Twitter was a great place for independent journalism without corporate propaganda. I don't think that is unrelated to the purchase...
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Hardly. It was just a different brand of censorship. Shadow banning was rampant, particularly on politically sensitive issues like COVID or the Biden laptop. The whole reason Musk bought it in the first place was in response to the fact it was a carefully groomed left-leaning stovepipe. In fact, I remember the common quip from the left when the right would complain about Twitter censorship was "then why do
Re: Grumpy Dems still grumpy (Score:2)
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Attributing Trumps win to social media is a social media meme at its worst. People are unhappy with the way things are. They voted for change. Its the same reason Biden won. Biden didn't deliver any real change other than not being Donald Trump. (Which admittedly was a big change.) Trump is certainly delivering change this time around.
The media is full of itself. It assumes it is the center of the universe and everyone is listening carefully to all their blather. But most people are paying far more attenti
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That's just one example of what I wrote about. Do you think the "adults" that voted Trump were doing any better with critical thinking about their news sources?
Well, not if you are an example. I guess not even adults who didn't vote for Trump. You have to believe that middle schoolers in "aggregate" are paying close enough attention to know that Harris "dissed" Rogan and cared enough that they decided they would vote for Trump instead. And you have to wonder how the "journalists" got a random sample of middle schoolers opinions.
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LOL...good one,always start out with a joke.
Oh man...especially good is that "articulate" part at the end there..hehehe.
Thanks for the morning laugh my friend....
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Candidate A: hardworking successful and respected prosecutor, Senator, and Vice President. Exemplary record of promoting health care, voting rights, and reducing gun violence and crime. Full understanding and adherence to the rule of law. Well educated. Articulate as a court officer should be.
Or Candidate A: enforced a policy of routinely withholding exculpatory evidence in criminal trials while attorney general.
And that was enough for me, although an "exemplary record of reducing gun violence" is code for "record of denying 2nd Amendment rights" would have served.
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Such a fascinating perspective and insight. Hopefully you won't get modded down (although I also hope you won't get modded up!) For many years I've had questions about certain historical events and you have provided some explanation.
I'm a old soul; no social media news for me. (Score:4, Interesting)
If a person isn't able to get fired over providing false news, then.. it's BS.
Heck, I find big 5 news outlets with incomplete coverage, leaning on sensationalistic coloration.
How on earth do you watch news on social media (Score:3)
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How do you get your news from social media?
People read their social media feed and there happens to be news commented there. Since TV is not fashionable and some people don't have enough interest in news to follow a news website, they just expect to learn about news when their social media feed mentions something.
For example if I stopped reading the particular news websites I like, my only source of news would be slashdot. Some people here count slashdot as social media (I don't because stories are posted by the editorial staff, making slashdot a cl
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That way, you only hear things that suit you and won't challenge your fundamental mindset.
No one will question you if you think the earth is flat, that Kubrick filmed Armstrong in1969, or that the CIA put microphones in the COVID vaccines..."
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Spoon-fed by the algorithm. I looked over my dad's shoulder at some of the posts he was looking at and just shook my head.
Don't trust anyone: Math teaches you how to verify (Score:2)
People should not only gather claims from different sources (ideally from sources in different languages and cultures), but also verify for themselves using scientific methods whether something can be true.
I think math education in school is exactly where you learn this: There are formulas and rules with which you can calculate something yourself. Then you don't need any news or opinion or answer from anyone - you can calculate it yourself and rely on it 100%. In doing so, you learn three things:
1) conducti
I piss in a little orange bottle but that (Score:2)
Marketing platforms distribute ads, not news. Anyone referring to the political spam on Twitter and Facebook as "news" is lying. Words mean things and that shit just ain't news.
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Headline should have "News" not News.
Getting his "News" from x.com is what drove Musk crazy.
I use BlueSky for news (Score:2)
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One-sided news is rife on BlueSky just as it is on other social media platforms. If you're just looking for news that agrees with your viewpoint, you'll get it there. If you're looking for low bias, good luck to you.
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Because I can follow lots of news accounts, I dont have to depend on one source for news and paywalled news sites get blocked so I dont have to see their posts ever again (washington post & new York times are blocked)
I arrived at the same conclusion and partial solution; WP, NYT, MSNBC, CNN, etc. are blocked from my search results.
Sad (Score:2)
not the source (Score:2)
social networks are content aggregators that link to the actual source: the news websites. Somehow the whole promise of the internet of cutting the middle man is broken.
Social media is rotting our brains .. (Score:5, Insightful)
The people behind these platforms don’t care about our mental health — they care about our attention, because that’s how they make money. Haidt warns that this toxic addiction to instant gratification is poisoning our society, and frankly, he’s right. What we’re seeing is a generation falling victim to brain rot, and it’s only getting worse.
This will be why (Score:2)
I am spending ever less time on social media.
This is because I have come to specifically distrust SM. Twitter was useful until Musk bought and trashed it. FB was interesting but overfull of people in the USA who thought their country was the only free one in the world and anyone rational wanted to be a US citizen. Not much useful conversation there then.
I commented once just how awful Mrs Thatcher was and the harm she had done to the UK.I had some people try and speak to me like I was 5 and tell me how
Not in Canada (Score:2)
The government made sure that we can't effectively share news across social media, so they can maintain control of the narrative and major media companies won't cry about losing advertising revenue.
whaddaya expect (Score:2)
Whaddaya expect, ever since craigslist put newspapers out of business.
Self-destructive tendencies? (Score:2)
- AI chatbot use for news is increasing, especially among under-25s, where it's twice as popular as in the general population.
and
- Most people believe AI will reduce transparency, accuracy, and trust in news.
So people are purposely adopting news sources which they believe will be less transparent, accurate, and trustworthy? Got it.
But I still don't get it.
Wait! What? (Score:2)
People actually get news through TikTok? I don't even trust the NYT and that's about as communist controlled.
Why not RT news, Al Jazeera or The Jerusalem Post?
When News Becomes a Dopamine Hit (Score:2)
Traditional media ran like a train schedule—predictable, slow, and mildly paternalistic. Someone in a suit told you what mattered and when to care. Social media nuked that model and replaced it with a variable-rate dopamine dispenser—basically a slot machine jacked into your limbic system. Instead of “the news at 6,” you get an infinite scroll engineered to stimulate your brain's reward system with novelty, outrage, or cleavage—sometimes all three at once. It’s parasocia
Transparency, Accuracy, Trust (Score:2)
"Most people believe AI will reduce transparency, accuracy, and trust in news."
If you're already getting your news primarily from social media, this is like worrying your shit sandwich might contain slightly more shit in the future.
Meanwhile in Ireland... (Score:2)
Re:Journalism died decades ago (Score:5, Insightful)
The funny thing is thinking social media is better when often times it is far, far worse. Also, what do you mean by "real data" because social media serves up all sorts of cherry picked and discredited "data" all the time?
We're basically trading traditional media which at least has some sort of oversite (however imperfect) for social media which has even less. This isn't good.
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The funny thing is thinking social media is better when often times it is far, far worse.
The funny thing is thinking that the person you're talking to blindly accepts anything they see on social media because you decided that's what they're doing in order to support your argument in the absence of any evidence or facts.
The well-known independent journalists who were providing actual news on Twitter are now providing actual news on Bluesky. They are far more reliable and useful than the major news outlets in the USA, who don't cover stories of actual import and give a corporate spin that defends
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The funny thing is thinking that the person you're talking to blindly accepts anything they see on social media because you decided that's what they're doing in order to support your argument in the absence of any evidence or facts.
The funny thing is that you think your statement here is true. Most people with their casual interest in current events and high school educations arent equipped to handle figuring out what's real or not via their social media feeds.
Over"site"? That's your problem, you trust news because it is on a site with a three letter TLD, which is fucking stupid. There is no meaningful oversight of mass media, and there never was. Even when we had the "fairness doctrine" it was easily evaded by simply not covering some stories, or having an idiot present the counterargument. The nation's largest news outlet spews lies continually, without pause or remorse. And here you are, simping for that mainstream, in an effort to borrow legitimacy.
The potential for liability and slander lawsuits alone keep big media in check from posting a lot of the fake news that comes up via social media.
Furthermore, just look at how things went with Covid. Sure, outlets like Fox werent the best at honest reporting but social media was
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Most people with their casual interest in current events and high school educations arent equipped to handle figuring out what's real or not via their social media feeds.
Instead, they believe that things are real because they saw them on a three-letter shit factory on the teevee, because they aren't equipped to know that it's a lot of bullshit. The difference is, they might find some facts on social media.
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Couldn't disagree more. The lesser informed and poorly educated are better off with mainstream media. Them going to online sources is how we get antivaxers and Qanon.
Mainstream media most definitely has its issues but the levels of misinformation coming from it both in regards to quantity and especially severity are significantly less so than social media which is a big part of why traditional media is generally considered superior at keeping people informed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] . I very strong
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Couldn't disagree more. The lesser informed and poorly educated are better off with mainstream media. Them going to online sources is how we get antivaxers and Qanon.
Going to the mainstream media is how we get a populace which is accepting of treason and fascism, because they underplay both.
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Nah, social media shown me that chugging raw milk and invermectin has literally zero downsides
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We're basically trading traditional media which at least has some sort of oversite (however imperfect) for social media which has even less. This isn't good.
That oversight was organizing the distortion. It was always there, but revealed through social media. The only way to correct the oversight was to drop traditional media, or scrutinize it just as heavily as social media.
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you are actually wrong.
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That's adorable.
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I'm simply saying factual reporting is impossible on traditional platforms, anyone with an ounce if sense can see.
Right, so Israel isnt bombing Iran right now like I'm seeing reported in the news?
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Hahaha, I'm not the one saying dumbshit things like "factual reporting is impossible on traditional platforms".
Re: Journalism died decades ago (Score:2)
We are literally seeing real life examples of what I'm talking about.
But go on, keep believing traditional media sources. You do you, boo, and continue to be surprised when the consistenycy theorists keep getting things right. Never examine how you continued to get things so wrong, just keep blindly following your dogma.
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We are literally seeing real life examples of what I'm talking about.
No we arent. Some reporting that is not factual does not equal or even come close to all reporting being not factual which was your claim. Mainstream news is widely regarded as more reliable than social media sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] . To pretend otherwise just illustrates your own poor ability to reason things out on your own which is exactly why you shouldnt be getting your news from social media.
But go on, keep believing traditional media sources. You do you, boo, and continue to be surprised when the consistenycy theorists keep getting things right. Never examine how you continued to get things so wrong, just keep blindly following your dogma.
Hahaha, conspiracy theorists getting things right. That's rich. Thanks for letting me know wh
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it's a steaming pile of horseshit
Which one is steaming pile of horseshit? The ones who write about things that don't fit your political view? Or all of them, even when they present counter arguments to each other meaning that one of them is usually correct*?
How is social media better? Do you think it's less horseshit because you are in an echo chamber of people preaching your views back to you?
Re: Journalism died decades ago (Score:2)
Social media is "better" because accurate reporting is at least possible on that platform.
It's not on traditional media.
Is there a ton of horse shit on social media? Yes, absolutely. More so than traditional media, if only by volume.
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CNN, Fox, the rest, are steaming piles of horseshit because they gave up on reporting factual news and let their opinions take over.
I don't want to hear their stupid woke or rightwing opinions. I want FACTS.
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There's a reason traditional media in this country is dying faster than the rest of the world, or even why it's dying at all; it's a steaming pile of horseshit, and has been for a long while. It's not "news", it's propaganda. What's more, it's obviously so; only the dumbest of us actually believe what sources like foxnews, cnn or msnbc "report". By extensions, they don't employ journalists, they employ propagandists.
That said, journalism isn't dead, although it is on life support. Real journalism CAN'T happen at the traditional media companies, so it's moved to the social media space...which nicely explains why they're eating traditional media's lunch.
Note; I'm not saying social media is the pinnacle of truth. Rather, you simply can't find real data from traditional media companies, whereas you CAN from social media ( along with tons of horseshit, yes ).
Pretty much this and most of it can be laid at the feet of the likes of Fox News.
US news media is pretty bad, but Fox makes CNN and NBC look a lot better. Everything at Fox is constructed to push a narrative, facts and reason and pushed by the wayside, in fact it's deliberately designed to be inflammatory and make the audience angry because angry people lose their ability to think critically.
The problems Americans have is that social media isn't much better, it's cheaper and easier to corral into your
Re: Journalism (Score:2)
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The problem is that, while it's possible to get better news
[citation needed]
You don't even know who he's getting the news from, but you're sure it's not the highest quality. You don't even know what you're attacking to defend your world view, but you're happy to attack it anyway. That's deeply insecure behavior.
there is no way to know it without considering many other sources anyway
If you reliably get good news from a specific source, then you can reasonably trust that source, until such a time as they show themselves to be untrustworthy. This isn't as complicated as you want it to be in your defense of the mainstream news which we can
Re: Journalism (Score:2)
Re: Journalism (Score:2)
Re: Journalism (Score:2)