I find it very hard to believe, they probably either misunderstood the question, or the question asked was more than "do you go to tiktok to check the news?"

If you open tiktok, there is all the content you want but the news

Also what kind of "news" the "researchers" are referring to? does checking about their favorite celebrity/trend count in their definition?

It's dropping for every other social media, so the answer to that probably is:

- americans are not satisfied with the freedom of speech (or perhaps lack of) / quality of the news they find on the official platforms, therefore they are looking elsewhere

And even that, i don't buy it