Why Legacy Media Companies Are Turning to TikTok
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Amazon Q Business is the generative AI assistant from AWS, because business can be slow, like wading through mud. But Amazon Q helps streamline work, so tasks like summarizing monthly results can be done in no time. Learn what Amazon Q Business can do for you at aws.com slash learn more. Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Thursday, December 19th. I'm Danny Lewis for The Wall Street Journal.

Every Apple iPhone made in the past few years includes a tool that could help protect people targeted by cybersecurity threats. It's called Lockdown Mode, and it's used by human rights activists and journalists. But it could be useful for just about anyone. Just ahead, we'll hear how the tool works and how it could help you. And later, TikTok's future in the U.S. is uncertain. But right now, it still has a huge audience of young people who get their news from the social media app.

And many legacy media companies are experimenting with using TikTok to reach new audiences. WSJ reporter Isabella Simonetti explains why news companies are still putting time and energy into TikTok despite its potential ban. But first, hackers looking to break into smartphones have a number of tools to do so. Photo sharing, payment applications, and logging on to unsecured Wi-Fi networks are all ways that bad actors can exploit to install spyware.

But in recent years, Apple has introduced a tool to help protect against cyber attacks by locking down some of the iPhone's most commonly used features. It's called Lockdown Mode, and Jackie Snow wrote about it for The Wall Street Journal. She joins us now.

Jackie, is this something that could be useful to anyone? People should go ahead and try it. It's under privacy and security in settings, and you can turn it on. And I actually had a cybersecurity expert tell me that if you were, you know, maybe part of a

leak or maybe some private information about you and your financial situation got shared online and you felt like your risks were heightened, that maybe is a good time to try out Apple Lockdown mode. How does it affect how the phone operates? Can you still look at the internet or listen to your favorite podcasts, say Tech News Briefing? Definitely.

The ways that people maybe would experience the differences most often are in your messages. Most of the attachments are blocked, so you're not going to get images, videos, links. There's not going to be a link preview. If you want to go look at it, you're going to have to copy and paste. Then FaceTime calls from unknown numbers, those won't be accepted. Some advanced web features are

are disabled. So websites might not look and work the way you're used to it. Then there's like some stuff that happens on the back end that maybe you'll be less impacted by. So how does all this help protect against hackers? There is a lot of ways that people are going to try to get things on your phone. And that's with links, that's with areas on the web that still have some cybersecurity threats. And so this is just

limiting the chances for them to slip on spyware onto your phone. And to be clear, this isn't foolproof. There are still things like if someone gets keylogging software onto your phone a different way, or if someone does social engineering gets you to tell them something about your phone that could just be a phone call, there is still risk available. This is not going to protect you from everything. This is just...

as cybersecurity experts call it, reducing your attack surface. There's fewer ways to do something nefarious and get it onto your phone. Gotcha.

We've been talking about Apple's efforts here for iPhones. Is there an equivalent for phones that are running Google's Android operating system? Google has Advanced Protection Program, and that helps to lock down your devices in a way where if something changes, you're going to get a notification. Also gets you to log in with something more secure, like a passkey or a physical security key.

But because Androids run on so many different types of hardware, you can't really lock down an Android device the way you can with iPhone, which is fully controlled by Apple. We should note, Google and Apple both declined to comment directly about their security efforts. All right, that was WSJ contributor Jackie Snow. Coming up, media outlets like CNN and Fox News are experimenting with new ways to bring in younger audiences through TikTok.

Just ahead, we'll hear how and how a possible ban on TikTok in the U.S. could affect their efforts. That's after the break. Amazon Q Business is the new generative AI assistant from AWS because many tasks can make business slow, as if wading through mud.

Help. Luckily, there's a faster, easier, less messy choice. Amazon Q can securely understand your business data and use that knowledge to streamline tasks. Now you can summarize quarterly results or do complex analysis in no time. Q got this. Learn what Amazon Q business can do for you at AWS dot com slash learn more. TikTok has exploded in popularity in recent years, especially with younger people.

Some big brands have been slow to join, but now some of the biggest companies in news and their reporters are establishing their presence on the platform. Just as a new federal law could effectively ban the app from operating in the U.S. in just a matter of weeks. WSJ reporter Isabella Simonetti wrote about this, and she joins us now. Isabella, why are some traditional news publishers only now turning to TikTok?

It depends on the publisher. Some have been on TikTok for quite a while. The Washington Post has been on TikTok since 2019. But the reality is for legacy media companies, they want to meet young audiences where they are. And if you look at Fox or MSNBC, the median age of their viewer is 69 or 70. And so young people, you're not going to necessarily reach them by age.

doing what you're doing on linear television or even on your digital news website. And young people are on TikTok. We have research from Pew that shows that 39% of adults under 30 say they get their news on TikTok. So publishers and TV and media companies want to make a splash on a platform like TikTok so that they can cultivate brand awareness with a younger generation.

And yesterday, the Supreme Court said it would decide the constitutionality of the TikTok ban, which is set to take effect January 19th. So why are media companies still investing time and effort in a platform with an uncertain future? It's about the format.

than it's about the platform. A lot of the work that these companies are doing on TikTok can be easily translated to other vertical video platforms like Instagram Reels. And TikTok right now is so huge. And even if...

A 25-year-old or a 26-year-old sees a Fox News TikTok or an MSNBC TikTok and then TikTok is banned, they might then look to follow them on another platform or keep up with their work elsewhere. So it's about trying to grasp viewers where they are now more than it is thinking years and years ahead about the strategy because no one knows what the future of TikTok is going to be.

How are legacy media companies and the journalists who work for them using the platform? Like, how is it changing their stories or how they're presenting it? There are a number of different approaches to how media companies are translating their work to TikTok. If we look at Trey Yinkst, Fox News' chief foreign correspondent, he does these kind of selfie-style videos while he's reporting from war zones, kind of walking viewers through what's going on.

And he said to me when I interviewed him that his goal is really just to give them a tidbit of his reporting so that they'll want to come back for more and tune into the coverage live on Fox. It's about giving young people a taste of what.

what kind of reporting these organizations have to offer so that down the road they might want to pay for a subscription service or a streaming service or follow the news on live TV. We should note that Fox News parent Fox Corp and the Wall Street Journal's parent company, News Corp, share common ownership. Isabella, are these companies making money off of the TikTok posts? My understanding is that TikTok is not a big company.

ad revenue driver for these companies. It's more about cultivating brand awareness for the future. So if I'm 25 and I'm seeing a Washington Post TikTok and I don't want to pay for a subscription right now, but five years from now I'm making more money and I decide I want to pay for a subscription, I might remember that I saw a TikTok from the

What do TikTok users, especially the younger ones, say about seeing news on this social media app versus going to more traditional media like TV, newspapers or, you know, podcasts?

I talked to one TikTok user who said that she loves to get news on TikTok because she feels like seeing people's raw reactions, even consumers and not professional reporters, is more authentic or genuine than what she sees. Yeah.

she turns on CNN or Fox. So young people like the authenticity and unfiltered nature of platforms like TikTok, and that's why they turn to them versus...

you know, TV news or reported work online. Reporter Isabella Simonetti covers the business of television and streaming for The Wall Street Journal. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with supervising producer Catherine Millsap. I'm Danny Lewis for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.

Amazon Q Business is the new generative AI assistant from AWS because many tasks can make business slow, as if wading through mud. Uh, help? Luckily, there's a faster, easier, less messy choice. Amazon Q can securely understand your business data and use that knowledge to streamline tasks. Now you can summarize quarterly results or do complex analysis in no time. Q got this. Learn what Amazon Q Business can do for you at aws.com slash learn more.