No, they're platforms for spreading information that place less of an inherent value on the pedigree of the source. This is partially a good thing because opinions and personal experience have a place somewhere in the epistemological hierarchy that mainstream news discounts. Making one's news diet wholly (or even mostly) social media is a mistake, but making it entirely news outlets is little different. I've found a good mix is "reputable" newspapers plus a bit of twitter.
Of course, I've also read a lot of garbage from those respectable outlets. A lot of slant and a lot of poorly-researched "journalism". This is basically a respectability politics problem; the NPR class is offended more that people have abandoned the trappings of "proper information" than over the information itself.
The problem is people don't often bother to corroborate information which suits their bias. This naturally leads to extremification and polarization. And TikTok is like a distilled version of that. Whereas ChatGPT might hallucinate on you, a gigantic portion of TikTok creators are actively deceiving you for personal gain, and the fraud, slander, political/religious peer pressure and downright harmful disinformation have largely gone unnoticed by regulators and law enforcement.
TikTok is not a place to get news. The culture isn't there, and the UI purposefully doesn't lend to things like sharing sources.
> The incentives to deceive are the same for content creators regardless the platform.
This is not true at all. Podcasters have no consequences for deceiving, and can easily recover from it by saying they're not journalists and that ends the subject there.
Try that with a News Outlet, then it would be Joe Rogan saying they're liars and are compromised.
There should be way more accountability for those platforms that have no code of ethics to abide by. Even the self-proclaimed "intellectual dark web" is extremely opinionated about a wide range of subjects way beyond their domain of expertise.
I'm not saying all news outlets are pristine, but comparing journalism, as an institution, and putting it at the same level of accountability as podcasters is just wrong.
I agree. I don't get political news from any video source. I go to these platforms for commentary and discussion, but I establish knowledge and fact check out-of-band.
And I'm still highly suspect of print media, I try to stick to individual journalists and editors who haven't gotten on my shitlist. Grassroots journalism is so good these days for many issues that it's getting easier to avoid conventional outlets altogether.
Of course, I've also read a lot of garbage from those respectable outlets. A lot of slant and a lot of poorly-researched "journalism". This is basically a respectability politics problem; the NPR class is offended more that people have abandoned the trappings of "proper information" than over the information itself.