Facebook and Twitter remain the main social media sites where people get news

Angela Lang / CNET
About half of American adults say they receive news from social media sites “sometimes” or “often”, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center. While that number (48%) is slightly lower than last year, it could be of concern given the vulnerability of social media to disinformation.
The new data, released Monday by Pew, includes some interesting findings. Facebook remains the biggest competitor, with 31% of American adult social media users surveyed saying they regularly receive news from Facebook. Next comes YouTube at 22% and Twitter at 13%. Twitter, however, is considered more topical than the other two sites, according to Pew. If you only look at Twitter users (and not all American adults), 55% say they regularly receive news on the social media site.
In contrast, “Less than one in 10 Americans say they regularly receive news from Reddit (7%), TikTok (6%), LinkedIn (4%), Snapchat (4%), WhatsApp (3%) and Twitch (1%) “, according to Pew.
In terms of demographics, the people who frequently turn to social media for information are predominantly white. More than half of regular news consumers on Facebook (60%), Twitter (51%) and Reddit (54%) are white, followed closely by Twitter (46%) and LinkedIn (45%). On more visual platforms like Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram, the percentage of Hispanic users who regularly receive news from the platform is approaching or, in Snapchat’s case, exceeds the percentage of white users, according to Pew. Snapchat and TikTok news regulars are younger than other social media platforms, with 63% and 52% in the 18-29 age range.
These findings underscore the importance of fact checking on social media sites: With nearly half of American adults turning to social media for regular news consumption, it is extremely easy for misinformation to spread.
Pew’s data was based on online surveys conducted between July and August with responses from more than 11,000 people who were part of a “nationally representative panel of randomly selected American adults.”