Your uncle's app is now your news source

Facebook was supposed to be over. The app your parents use to share minion memes and argue about politics. The platform we all migrated away from in high school. And yet: it's where a lot of us are getting our news again.

In the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, Facebook remains one of the top sources for breaking news among people under 30. Not because it's cool—it isn't—but because it works. Local news pages post quickly. Community groups share updates faster than official channels. During typhoons, floods, or transport strikes, Facebook is where you find out if your street is passable or if classes are suspended.

TikTok has joined the rotation for a different reason. It's better for explaining things quickly. A 60-second video can break down a new tax policy, a corruption scandal, or why your electricity bill went up. Creators add context that traditional news sites skip. The algorithm surfaces topics you didn't search for but probably should know about.

This is not ideal, but it's rational. News websites are often slow, paywalled, or populated with sponsored content that looks like reporting. TV news runs on a different schedule. Twitter is too chaotic and too niche. Instagram is for faces, not facts. Reddit works if you already know what you're looking for.

So we're back on Facebook, scrolling past high school classmates and sponsored ads to find out what happened in the Senate hearing. We're on TikTok, where a video about a student protest transitions into a skincare ad transitions into a clip explaining inflation.

The problems are obvious. Both platforms prioritize engagement over accuracy. Misinformation spreads quickly. Algorithm-fed news creates bubbles. You can watch 50 videos about a political issue and never encounter a counterargument. Facebook's moderation in Southeast Asian languages is still weak. TikTok's format rewards simplification, which sometimes means distortion.

But the alternative—relying solely on traditional media that often ignores youth concerns or frames every story for an older demographic—is not much better. At least on these platforms, you can follow independent creators, student journalists, and grassroots pages that cover what mainstream outlets won't.

The real issue is not that we're using Facebook and TikTok for news. It's that these platforms were never designed to be reliable information ecosystems, and yet they've become default infrastructure. No one set out to make TikTok the place to learn about labor law. It just ended up that way because the gaps elsewhere are too big.