In 2021, more than 150 million TikTok users are in China.
TikTok is one of the most downloaded applications in the world in recent years.
The use of social networks has become a subject of study in many countries around the world. New research from NewsGuard revealed that one in five searches on TikTok suggest false information.
This study is relevant, because the TikTok social network is one of the most used in the world and by many people. That is why the Chinese digital platform was positioned in January 2021 among the top ten social networks, registering 655.9 million users worldwide.
Likewise, Sensor Tower 2020explained that it is one of the most downloaded applications in the world in recent years, with two billion downloads between the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.
Searches on TikTok
After it was revealed in recent months that TikTok is one of the most used social networks by new generations as internet search engines. An investigation by NewsGuard emphasized that the social network is not the best option for searches.
According to the investigation, up to 20 percent of the time it shows incorrect data or false information, after analyzing a total of 540 TikTok videos on various topics, at least 105 of these contained information “false and misleading”.
The study indicated that the themes of the analyzed videos are linked to general interest, for example, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Covid-19 vaccines or school shootings in the United States.
NewsGuard’s investigation refers to controversial data about what the platform’s algorithm suggests. For example, if you type ‘climate change’, the algorithm suggests you see ‘climate change does not exist’.
Before the study, a TikTok spokesperson highlighted in a statement to Mashable that “our Community Guidelines make it clear that we do not allow harmful misinformation, including medical misinformation, and we will remove it from the platform.”
“We partner with credible voices to elevate authoritative content on topics related to public health and we partner with independent fact checkers who help us assess the accuracy of content,” he added.
TikTok is not the first social network that is being used as a search engine similar to Google by users of the new generations.
As an example, there is a study by Remazing and Appinio that detailed that ahead of all search engines, Amazon has become the most powerful in this area, even more than Google.
Remember that currently, there are different types of search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu and DuckduckGo. Where, according to data from StatCounter, The Google browser was placed first in the ranking of the search engines with the highest number of users in both 2021 and 2022, with a global market share of over 92 percent, followed by Bing, with a percentage close to three percent.
In that sense, this type of trend and studies has gained ground in recent years, since the new generations prefer social networks over other platforms to communicate, entertain themselves, educate themselves, among other things.