BBC Complains As Twitter Brands Public Broadcaster ‘Government Funded Media’

Screenshot, Twitter
Screenshot, Twitter
Kurt Zindulka

Britain’s public broadcaster, the BBC, has complained after Twitter slapped its main account with a “government funded media” tag, joining the likes of NPR in America.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has formally “objected” to being labelled as “government funded media” on Twitter, writing to the Elon Musk-run social media giant to resolve the situation “as soon as possible” after its main account with over two million followers received the label over the weekend.

As Britain’s public broadcaster, the BBC receives most of its funding from a £159 annual television licence fee which every UK resident who watches live television is forced to pay, regardless of whether they watch the BBC or not. Should a resident fail to pay the licence fee, they face criminal fines, the non-payment of which could result in jail time.

The BBC has attempted to argue that the label is incorrect because its funding derives from the licence fee, which they claim is technically different from a government tax.

In an email to the public broadcaster, Mr Musk wrote: “We are aiming for maximum transparency and accuracy. Linking to ownership and source of funds probably makes sense. I do think media organizations should be self-aware and not falsely claim the complete absence of bias.

“All organizations have bias, some obviously much more than others. I should note that I follow BBC News on Twitter because I think it is among the least biased.”

Curiously, the Twitter tag was only applied to the main BBC account — which mostly promotes television programming — and not its affiliated accounts that actually focus on news and politics.

Although Twitter has applied the “government funded media” tag to America’s National Public Radio (NPR) — which receives some of its funding from taxpayer dollars — Twitter has yet to slap the label on other public broadcasters in Europe, such as Germany’s Deutsche Welle, Italy’s RAI, or France Télévisions, among others.

It also appears that the policy is attempting to differentiate between media organisations that receive government funding and those controlled directly by the government, including Chinese propaganda networks such as CGTN, which is currently labelled by Twitter as “China state affiliated media”.

Under the Royal Charter, the BBC is guaranteed editorial independence from the government but is mandated to report news in an impartial and unbiased manner.

Although the BBC does not appear to align politically with the current Conservative government, it has frequently been accused of holding the metropolitan-liberal bias common among elites in Westminster, having previously banned climate change sceptics from its airwaves as well as allegedly suppressing Eurosceptic views in favour of those who supported the UK remaining in the EU.

The public also widely believes that the broadcaster is biased, with a 2019 poll from Norstat finding that nearly two-thirds of Britons thought the BBC was biased. A separate poll from YouGov found that only 44 per cent had faith in journalists at the BBC to be truthful, compared to 48 per cent who did not trust their reporting.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka

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