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New research by Pew suggests there has been another increase in the proportion of U.S. adults getting news via social media platforms.<\/p>\n
In May last year<\/a> the researcher reported that 62 per cent of American adults were obtaining news from tech platforms, saying 18 per cent were doing so often. Now, in it\u2019s latest survey<\/a>, it says two-thirds\u00a0(67%) of U.S. adults are reporting getting at least some of their news on social media. While a fifth (20%) report doing so \u201coften\u201d.<\/p>\n And while it\u2019s not a huge increase, it is nonetheless a rise (Pew terms it a \u201cmodest\u201d increase).<\/p>\n And a concerning one, given that the main social media purveyor of news \u2014 Facebook \u2014 has a demonstrable disinterest in and\/or incapacity to distinguish fact from nonsensical fiction on its platform.<\/p>\n Indeed, as many have already pointed out Facebook\u2019s business benefits from increased user engagement, and made-up stories<\/a> that play to people\u2019s prejudices and\/or contain wild, socially divisive claims have been shown to be able to<\/a> clock up far more Facebook views than factual reports of actual news.<\/p>\n So any rise in news consumption on social media should give pause for thought \u2014 especially as Facebook (and Google, principally) continues to suck ad revenue away from<\/a> traditional media outlets, threatening the sustainability of businesses that have traditionally played a key role in a functioning democracy.<\/p>\n Pew\u2019s survey is based on responses from 4,971 U.S. adults who are members of the Center\u2019s nationally representative American Trends Panel. The research was carried out between August 8-21, 2017.<\/p>\n It said it found that growth in news consumption across social media platforms is being driven by increases among Americans who are \u201colder, less educated and non-white\u201d \u2014 noting that for the first time in Pew Research Center surveys more than half (55%) of Americans aged 50 or older report getting news on social media sites \u2014 up 10 percentage points from 2016.<\/p>\n Pew found that three of the social media platforms it asked about in 2017 \u2014\u00a0Twitter, YouTube and Snapchat \u2014 had an increase in\u00a0<\/em>the share of their audience that gets news\u00a0on each site.<\/p>\n About three-quarters (74%) of Twitter users reported getting news on the site, up 15 percentage points from early 2016.<\/p>\n While about a third of YouTube\u2019s users (32%) now get news from the site, up from 21% in early 2016 \u2014 so a rise of 11 percentage points.<\/p>\n And consuming news also rose among Snapchat\u2019s user base \u2014 with 29% currently saying they are doing this, up from 17% in early 2016, so an increase of 12 percentage points.<\/p>\n Still, Facebook remains the primary social media platform for sourcing news for the U.S. population as a whole \u2014 with just under half (45%) of all U.S. adults reporting they get news on the site (aka a large majority \u2014 68% \u2014 of Facebook\u2019s user base).<\/p>\n How times change. Just a year ago Facebook was pooh-poohing the notion that the social mega-platform is playing the role of a media company. \u2018We are mere tech platform\u2019 was the refrain in September 2016<\/a>, despite how its algorithms select and order news-related content for billions of users.<\/p>\n By December<\/a>, and following the fake news backlash after the US election result, that line was approaching the breaking point of credibility, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg conceded Facebook might indeed be a media company \u2014 though he suggested it\u2019s not a \u2018traditional\u2019 one.<\/p>\n And that is surely true. No other media entity on Earth has enjoyed such vast reach<\/a> and\u00a0power<\/a>.<\/p>\n Little wonder Russian agents spied potential to sew social division across the U.S. population as the country was headed into the salient point of an election cycle by purchasing, targeting and distributing politically charged ads via the platform \u2014 as Facebook this week<\/a> revealed had been the case.<\/p>\n It reported that an in-house investigation found pro-Kremlin entities appear to have purchased around $100,000 in political marketing on the platform between 2015 and 2016.<\/p>\n The company has so far resisted pressure<\/a> to publicly reveal the ads purchased by Russian entities.<\/p>\n This is complete nonsense. First, the Russians who violated law and policy have no privacy rights on their ads. https:\/\/t.co\/xkqvTtbZIP<\/a><\/p>\n\n