Gen Z is replacing Google with TikTok. Why this is a worrying trend

For example, if a user searched for "Covid vaccine”, TikTok offered "covid vaccine truths" or "covid vaccine hiv” as suggestions. Similarly, searching for “climate change” returned results for “climate change debunked” and “climate change doesn’t exist.” Around 19.4% of the search results were misleading (105 out of 540 videos analysed), according to the study.

Moreover, the study also found an abundance of potentially dangerous videos going unchecked on the platform. Searching for “hydroxychloroquine” on TikTok, for example, returned at least four results promoting recipes for a do-it-yourself version of hydroxychloroquine.

Hydroxychloroquine is a prescription drug that can be dangerous if not taken as prescribed and should only be produced in a controlled laboratory setting, yet users were provided with DIY videos on how to make it at home.

Also going unchecked on the platform are other potentially dangerous herbal remedies for abortion and methods to induce a miscarriage that have no scientific basis.

These misleading results on TikTok become all the more dangerous when we consider the app’s primary user base – the platform is a favourite among youngsters. Gen Z (people born between 1997 and 2012) is increasingly turning to TikTok for information.

Nearly 40% of Gen Z members prefer TikTok for online searches over Google, according to internal data from Google. “In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram,” said Google Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan at an industry event about two months ago, according to TechCrunch.