A British tabloid is America’s top news brand on TikTok

The most-engaged news account on TikTok isn’t a 20-something with a selfie stick—it’s a 120-year-old British tabloid. An original analysis of hundreds of news accounts on TikTok shows that The Daily Mail, a daily print paper in the UK known for its sensational headlines, has received more lifetime post likes on TikTok than any other news brand or news influencer.

The numbers are staggering. The company’s main account has over 23.2 million followers, adding more than 10 million net new followers in the past nine months. The Daily Mail’s posts have been liked over 2.9 billion times, and last year alone, their posts generated more than a billion engagements. The outlet’s reach is so outsized that one analyst described its gravitational pull as “that of a neutron star” within the TikTok news universe.

“[Tiktok] offers incredible reach with an audience that likely doesn’t already engage with the Daily Mail on a regular basis,” says Nathan Giannini, the company’s Deputy Head of Social Video. “TikTok has been around for almost a decade, so even if someone signed up in high school, now they could be in their late 20s. That informs some of our coverage decisions. It’s not all viral dances and trending audios — we treat our audience like grownups, because they are. That means covering things grownups care about: the US presidential election, war in the Middle East, as well as some lighter fare.”

The Mail’s social team, which is comprised of journalists and social media specialists, expanded in early 2024 and produces a wide range of content, from breaking political news to sensational celebrity happenings, all tailored for TikTok’s fast-paced, visually-driven format. The result is a brand that’s thriving among Gen Z and millennial audiences who may never pick up a print newspaper.

“One of the things that makes us so successful [is] we make content for the platform rather than trying to cram our content onto the platform,” says Giannini. “The majority of our content is bread and butter Daily Mail. Relentlessness is in the DNA here, we’re world class at quickly flooding the zone with captivating content. That approach just happens to be a perfect fit for TikTok, so we’re able to reach this enormous new audience while staying true to the brand.”

TikTok’s news ecosystem: still booming, still changing

More than a year after former President Joe Biden signed a bill intended to ban TikTok in the U.S., the app remains alive and well. The Trump administration continues to grant the app a reprieve from the controversial sale-or-ban law, and parent company ByteDance is reportedly preparing a new version of the app for American users in the coming months. Many predicted TikTok would either be dead or unrecognizable by now, but it remains a daily habit for over 170 million Americans.

According to Pew, one in six Americans regularly gets their news from TikTok—a number that jumps to nearly 40% among adults under 30. The platform’s influence on news consumption has only grown, even as political and regulatory battles swirl in Washington. While there have been numerous reports and studies on news consumption on TikTok, few have actually mentioned or listed the top news sources on the platform. 

I spent the past few weeks conducting a large scale analysis of over 250 brands and creators that have posted about U.S. news multiple times in the past month, including local outlets, partisan commentators, corporate media, and nonpartisan explainers. To be included in this list, accounts needed to have received at least 30 million lifetime likes and share a consistent focus on hard news and politics. Entertainment news and sports-focused accounts, as well as those with a general political, but not news focus, were excluded.

All-Access subscribers can have access to the full dataset I used for this analysis here.

Want to access the spreadsheet? Upgrade your subscription here. 

As you can see, the top news accounts on the platform are a mix of partisan and non-partisan actors, individual creators and legacy news brands. Progressive news influencers like Aaron Parnas and Josh Helfgott have found great success, as have left-leaning news startups like COURIER and NowThis Impact. Major right-leaning news sources have generally struggled to gain a foothold on the platform. Legacy broadcast television giants like NBC News, ABC News, and CBS News have done surprisingly well on the platform, as have a handful of local television stations like ABC 7 Los Angeles. 

News served directly to users

What sets TikTok apart from other major social media platforms historically is its algorithm-driven “For You Page.” Users don’t need to follow major news accounts to see their content; the algorithm surfaces videos from creators and brands that they may not already follow, based on what it determines to be engaging or relevant. This dynamic has allowed new media companies and individual upstarts to quickly surpass legacy brands in audience reach if their content resonates. For traditional or legacy publishers, TikTok has offered a rare opportunity to reach new audiences at a massive scale for very little investment. 

Unlike its major rival Meta, which has previously sought to stem the flow of news and political content on its platforms, TikTok has not suppressed that kind of content. In fact, Axios reported last month that the company is hiring a News Creator Manager to build relationships with accounts that share news on the platform. 

Regardless of the company’s current investments, the app in the U.S. still faces an uncertain future. With ByteDance reportedly preparing a new U.S. version of TikTok (and a new algorithm?) amid a potential sale, questions abound: Will a new algorithm upend the current news ecosystem? Could changes to the “For You Page” disrupt the dominance of brands like The Daily Mail or impact the flow of news content generally? 

As TikTok continues to redefine how millions consume news, its unique blend of algorithm-driven discovery and creator-led storytelling has reshaped the media landscape. Yet, with potential regulatory changes and algorithmic shifts on the horizon, the only certainty is that the platform’s news ecosystem will keep evolving, and the rules of engagement on the platform will continue to be rewritten. 

A Test of Influence in Arizona

What’s worth more: hundreds of thousands of social media followers, or a famous last name?

The generational divide within Democratic politics is front and center tomorrow night in Tucson, where the special election primary for Arizona’s 7th Congressional District has become a high-profile test of Gen Z’s political clout. Deja Foxx, a 25-year-old activist and digital creator with a national following, is taking on two establishment heavyweights in the race to succeed the late Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a progressive icon who held the seat for over twenty years before dying in office in March.

Grijalva’s daughter, Adelita, is considered the clear frontrunner. Having served on both the school board and the Pima County Board of Supervisors, she has consolidated establishment support, inherited her father’s campaign infrastructure, and secured endorsements from progressive leaders such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her campaign has leaned heavily into her father’s progressive legacy and longstanding ties to the district’s labor and immigrant communities. 

Foxx, on the other hand, stands out as an unconventional candidate powered by digital savvy and a message aimed at young, working-class, and historically excluded voters. Raised in Tucson public housing and propelled to prominence as a reproductive rights activist, Foxx has positioned herself as the change candidate, arguing that the party must do more to engage new voters and broaden its coalition. She has leveraged her social media following and outsider status to energize younger voters and those disillusioned with the status quo. Her team has even given progressive media outlet COURIER behind-the-scenes access to film a mini-docuseries about the campaign: 

Daniel Hernandez, a former state representative and moderate Democrat, rounds out the trio of leading contenders. Initially seen as Grijalva’s main rival, Hernandez has been overshadowed in recent weeks by Foxx’s surge in grassroots and online momentum.

Public polling has been limited, but early surveys showed Grijalva as the prohibitive favorite, buoyed by name recognition and overwhelming support among Hispanic voters. More recent internal polling from the Foxx campaign and outside groups, however, suggests the race has tightened, with Foxx closing the gap as her name recognition has grown and undecided voters have taken notice.

Arizona’s 7th District is safely Democratic, so the winner of tomorrow’s primary is almost certain to head to Congress. The outcome, however, will reverberate far beyond Tucson, serving as an early referendum on whether Gen Z’s digital-first, outsider candidates can translate online influence into electoral power, especially in districts long dominated by political dynasties. 

“Everything I've ever learned about Southern Arizona politics tells me Adelita Grijalva will replace her father in Congress. She's going to win her five-way primary by double digits,” columnist Blake Morlock wrote in the Tucson Sentinel this week. But, “A Foxx win would be a cannon blast out over the political landscape telling hungry, scrappy newcomers that it's time to rally.” 

For more reading on the dynamics of the special election, check out this data-driven analysis of the race from Kyle Chalmers.

Full disclosure: I’m not without bias in this race — I worked with Deja for a short time in 2020 and contributed to her campaign. 

More things you should read: 

• Something we’re not talking about enough: Over the July 4th holiday, the Social Security Administration emailed millions of American seniors praising Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill” and spreading misinformation about its impacts. 

• As Democrats continue their academic study of the American populace in search of answers for What Went Wrong in 2024, a new report shows where working class voters get their news and information. 

• What if the U.S. were a multiparty Democracy? How would voters identify? Patrick Ruffini from Echelon Insights has an interesting look via his newsletter, The Intersection. 

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