Twitter to Relabel BBC as ‘Publicly-Funded’

A phone screen displays a photo of Elon Musk with the Twitter logo shown in the background in Washington on Oct. 4, 2022. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

The BBC’s “government-funded media” Twitter tag will be relabeled after the broadcaster objected to it, according to platform owner Elon Musk.

On Monday, the BBC protested Twitter’s decision to label its main account as “government-funded media.”

The BBC contacted Twitter last week after the designation was attached to the main @BBC account.

In an interview with the BBC, Twitter owner Musk said he has the “utmost respect” for the organisation, adding, “We want [the tag] as truthful and accurate as possible—we’re adjusting the label to [the BBC being] publicly funded—we’ll try to be accurate.”

He previously described the BBC as “among the least biased” news organisations.

In a statement released in the wake of the “government-funded media” designation, the broadcaster said: “The BBC is, and always has been, independent.

“We are funded by the British public through the licence fee.”

The label links to Twitter’s help centre which says “government-funded media” are outlets where the government “provides some or all of the outlet’s funding and may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content.”

The BBC's headquarters in London, in an undated photo. (Ian West/PA)

Licence Fee

The BBC is principally funded through a licence fee paid by UK households.

The licence fee raised £3.8 billion in 2022 for the BBC, accounting for about 71 percent of the BBC’s total income of £5.3 billion.

In March, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office announced that it is giving an extra £20 million to support the BBC World Service over two years.

On social media, some disputed Twitter’s labelling, saying that while the BBC is funded by the British public through the licence fee, its operations and editorial decision-making are independent of the government. The BBC’s impartiality is also set out in its Royal Charter and framework agreement.

The BBC said that “collection of the licence fee and enforcement of non-payment is carried out by private companies contracted by the corporation, not the UK government.”

In a follow-up article, the editor of The Spectator magazine, Fraser Nelson, argued that the BBC “undoubtedly” is government funded and to say that it is publicly funded is a “bit Orwellian.”

“The BBC’s Jesuitical excuse is that a private firm, Capita, does the dirty work,” wrote Nelson. “But the power behind this licence fee is, of course, governmental,” he added.

Twitter Tag

As of Wednesday, the BBC still has the “government-funded media” tag.

Last week, NPR, which critics say exhibits a far-left bias in its reporting, was designated “state-affiliated” by Twitter.

“Labeling NPR state-affiliated media is wholly inaccurate and untruthful. NPR gets LESS THAN 2 percent of its funding from grants through the federal government. NPR’s newsroom is an absolutely free and independent newsroom; always has been. This label is a LIE and an insult,” wrote NPR’s Ashley Westerman.

However, some argued that much of NPR’s funding is hidden in the form of grants, which suggests that the often-claimed 2 percent figure is far higher.

On Tuesday, Canadian Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre told Twitter in a letter that the Canadian public broadcaster CBC should be labelled as “government-funded media” on Twitter.

Poilievre noted that CBC receives the majority of its funding from the federal government, to the tune of $1.24 billion.

“As a result, and in the interest of transparency, I believe that Twitter should apply the Government-funded Media label to the CBC’s various news-related accounts, including @CBC, @CBCNews, and @CBCAlerts,” he wrote.

BBC Interview

In a wide-ranging interview on Wednesday with BBC tech reporter James Clayton, Musk disputed claims that so-called hate speech has become more prevalent on Twitter since his takeover.

In March, the BBC’s disinformation and social media team talked to former Twitter employees who claimed that under Musk’s ownership, the company “is no longer able to protect users from trolling, state-co-ordinated disinformation and child sexual exploitation.”

Musk asked Clayton for an example of offensive content but the journalist was unable to give one.

“I say, sir, that you don’t know what you are talking about, because you cannot give me a single example of hateful content, not even one tweet,” said Musk.

“You claimed that hateful content is high. That is false, you just lied,” he added.

PA Media, Jack Phillips, and Noé Chartier contributed to this report.