Elon Musk has sparked a row with the BBC after labelling the broadcaster as a “government-funded media” organisation on Twitter.
The national broadcaster, which is funded principally by UK households through the annual licence fee, is one of several news outlets to receive the label from the social media network over the past week.
A BBC spokesman said: “We are speaking to Twitter to resolve this issue as soon as possible.
“The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee.”
The government of the day is responsible for setting the level of the licence fee but it is paid by households.
In the 2021-22 financial year, the licence fee generated £3.8 billion for the corporation’s budget.
The BBC also draws the income from some commercial operations.
The World Service, which operates outside the UK and runs a separate Twitter account, @BBCWorldService, does receive some funding from the government.
The Daily Telegraph has contacted Twitter for comment. However, Musk has slimmed down the network’s communications with the press over recent months — emails to its press office are now automatically responded to with a “poo” emoji.
The BBC spate follows a row between Musk and the American NPR network after the billionaire changed NPR’s label to “state-affiliated media” — which effectively suggested the US government could influence its editorial policy and put it on a par with outlets such as the Kremlin-funded Russia Today.
Twitter says it defined state-affiliated media outlets as “outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution”.
According to NPR, roughly 1 per cent of its annual operating budget comes from government grants. Twitter has since changed the description of NPR to “government-funded media” after NPR said it would not tweet from the account while it carried that description.
However, when the tag “government-funded media” is clicked on the BBC’s Twitter profile, it links to Twitter’s policy page on government accounts and state-affiliated media.
It comes after Musk stripped The New York Times of its blue tick last week, suggesting in tweets that he had personally ordered the removal of the symbol, which proves the identity of an account holder as a trusted source.
This came after reports The New York Times had refused to pay up to $1,000 per month to hang on to the tick.
The Daily Telegraph, London