War as seen on TikTok: Ukraine clips get views whether true or not
by Dan Milmo and Hibaq Farah from Technology | The Guardian on (#5WSCE)
Social media platform is a popular news source for young adults, but misinformation is commonplace
Trucks carrying large cylindrical containers sweep down a snowy road to a soundtrack of hollering and an alarming, if amateurish, caption: RUSIA NUCLEAR BOMB". The video was taken down, but not before it received 18m views. Welcome to the Russia-Ukraine conflict on TikTok.
TikTok has 1 billion users worldwide and is an important news source for adults and particularly those under 25. A quarter of US adults say they always use TikTok to get the news, with nearly half of US millennial and Gen Z adults - under-41s and under-25s respectively - indicating the same, according to analysis firm Forrester Research.
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