Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Twitter, landed himself on the receiving end of more criticism on Monday after the social media giant slapped the British Broadcasting Corporation with a “Government Funded Media” label over the weekend.
The BBC publicly objected to the label and engaged in a dialogue with Musk to have it removed. “The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee,” the company said in a statement.
“Elon Musk said he believed the BBC was one of the ‘least biased’ outlets,” added the BBC relaying the outlet’s discussion with Musk – who said he follows the BBC on Twitter to get news.
“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,” Musk added.
The odd move came on the heels of Musk’s Twitter receiving sharp backlash last week for labeling National Public Radio “US state-affiliated media” – the platform backed down and switched the label to “government funded” over the weekend.
Musk was slammed online for the inaccurate label slapped on the BBC and was called out across the board by critics of the move. Deadline’s Jake Kanter noted, “The @BBC is not funded by the UK government. It is funded by the British public through a system known as the licence fee. The BBC’s operations and editorial decision-making are entirely independent of the government.”
While many critics called out Musk for not understanding the difference between publicly funded and government-funded media, others went after the Tesla billionaire for his apparent boosting of talking points from authoritarian regimes, which run actual state-affiliated media.
Journalist Oliver Kamm took to Twitter to denounce the move and wrote, “I recounted here an early encounter with a real state-controlled outlet, Russia Today. I recall that my interlocutor, then head of RT’s London bureau, came out with the line that RT was like the BBC. Musk is literally repeating the Kremlin’s propaganda.”
Commentator and journalism professor Christian Christensen, argued, “Musk labelled @BBC as “Government Funded Media.” Intention is to blur lines betw. state propaganda like Russia Today & European public broadcasters, many of which have in-built safeguards against direct state interference. Here’s why attacking public broadcasting matters.”
Musk himself responded by brushing off the criticism. He replied to a tweet mocking the criticism, writing, “What does BBC stand for again? I keep forgetting.”
Podcast host Katie Herzog jabbed back, “Do you also think ABC and NBC are state-funded because of their names?”.
