The BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, has said he will not be taking the broadcaster off Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, saying that its presence is needed to resist a flood of global misinformation.
Davie said he had come under pressure to withdraw from the platform, given numerous complaints that it has shifted significantly to the right under Musk’s ownership.
The site is also facing a backlash over a wave of images of women and children with their clothes digitally removed, generated by X’s Grok AI tool.
Appearing before MPs to discuss the BBC’s efforts to counter misinformation, Davie said he had rejected calls to no longer use X. He said the BBC had to reach vulnerable young audiences around the world and said the likes of China and Iran were “flooding the zone”.
“I have quite a lot of pressure to remove the BBC from X,” he said. “By the way, that is not what I’ll be doing because we need to be on these platforms. We need to give quality information on to these social media platforms, bring people in. I actually think that’s critical, because otherwise the Chinese, the Iranians – they’re flooding the zone. They’re investing very hard.
“We are in a position where the majority of 16 to 34s come to BBC every week – we’re still fighting that battle.”
Davie resigned as the BBC’s director general in November last year but his successor is yet to be appointed.
The former transport secretary Louise Haigh said she was leaving X and called on her party and government to do the same after the condemnation over material being produced by Grok.
Haigh said the platform had become “utterly unusable” since Musk’s takeover in 2022. She called on institutions like the BBC to follow suit.
“I continued to maintain an account and occasionally post because a critical mass of people, including the government and journalists who we need to communicate with as MPs, remained on the site,” she said. “However, the revelations around the enablement, if not encouragement, of child sexual abuse mean it is unconscionable to use the site for another minute.
“I would urge the government and all public bodies to remove themselves entirely from X and communicate with the public where they actually participate online and can be protected from such illegality.”
Keir Starmer took aim at X on Thursday, saying he had asked Ofcom, the communications regulator, to put “all options … on the table” in dealing with it. “It’s disgraceful, it’s disgusting and it’s not to be tolerated,” he said. “X has got to get a grip of this. We will take action on this, because it’s simply not tolerable.”
There are discussions taking place in Westminster among MPs and party officials over the benefits of remaining on the social media site.
The Commons women and equalities committee has also decided to stop using X after the Grok AI tool began generating digitally altered images of women and children with their clothes removed.
Speaking to the Commons public accounts committee, Davie said disinformation and misinformation were now “utterly rife” as Russia, China, Iran and others spend billions on media to promote their geopolitical goals. “The stakes – in my lifetime – have never been higher,” he said.
The BBC is pushing for tens of millions of pounds in extra investment into the World Service this year, which executives describe as the bare minimum needed to keep services at their current level.
Cuts have already been made to the World Service, with the loss of more than 100 jobs. However, Davie and other senior figures are now pushing for increased funding, given the aggressive media investment drive from the likes of China and Russia that has seen trust in their state broadcasters increase significantly in some parts of the world.
Jonathan Munro, the interim head of BBC News, repeated the warning that the world had entered the “space between peace and war”, making it crucial to step up efforts to spread reliable information. The phrase was first used in a speech by the new head of MI6, Blaise Metreweli, last month.
Fiona Crack, the controller of the World Service, revealed that a fifth of the World Service’s language services already face “hostile interference” as state actors attempt to stop their broadcasts. It includes “throttling” – a practice in which internet access is squeezed to hamper its output.
