The Labour government is consulting on plans that could force social-media platforms to promote so-called “trusted and accurate” outlets, including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, in the name of tackling “misinformation”.
The government’s new media Green Paper says public service media must be “seen and heard” in the battle against “mis- and disinformation”. In practice, this means pushing state-approved broadcasters higher up people’s feeds when they search for news.
This is deeply troubling. After all, who decides what counts as a “trusted” source? Who decides what is “misinformation”? And why should politicians, regulators or legacy broadcasters be the ones who decide which voices the public hears first?
Reform UK Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick raised the point in Parliament yesterday:
Before that, in 2023, the BBC had to publicly apologise to Farage over its inaccurate reporting of the Coutts debanking scandal, when it reported that Coutts had closed Farage’s account for commercial reasons. In fact, internal documents later revealed that his political views had played a significant role.
If this is the model of “trusted and accurate” news, then we ought to ask: trusted by whom?
For years, millions of voters have felt shut out of the national conversation. They have been told their concerns are “divisive”, “extreme”, or “misinformed”. But these people know what they can see with their own eyes. They know that Britain is not working, that the old parties have failed, and that the media class has a vested interest in maintaining that cosy consensus.
That’s why Reform Daily brings news about Reform UK directly to the public. We can tell people what Reform UK actually believes, without it being distorted by a media establishment that is set against us. We don’t need state-approved broadcasters to tell our supporters what we “really” mean - we can speak for ourselves.
And in a country where the government now seems determined to decide which voices are heard, that matters more than ever.
The government’s new media Green Paper says public service media must be “seen and heard” in the battle against “mis- and disinformation”. In practice, this means pushing state-approved broadcasters higher up people’s feeds when they search for news.
This is deeply troubling. After all, who decides what counts as a “trusted” source? Who decides what is “misinformation”? And why should politicians, regulators or legacy broadcasters be the ones who decide which voices the public hears first?
Reform UK Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick raised the point in Parliament yesterday:
“Let me get this straight: the government - either a minister or, worse, unaccountable civil servants - are planning to decide which news providers are deemed trustworthy and which are deemed untrustworthy; and then the government, or unaccountable civil servants and quangos, are going to give priority to the services that they deem to be trustworthy, and reduce the prominence of those that they do not like and consider to be untrustworthy. That sounds quite dystopian to me. How can it be seen as anything other than a serious attack on freedom of the press and freedom of speech?”Let’s not forget that the BBC, which will presumably be the gold standard of a “trusted” outlet as far the government is concerned, has spread plenty of its own misinformation. This is the same broadcaster that has had to repeatedly apologise to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage for its inaccurate reporting. Just recently, Farage was misquoted on Newsnight, with his call for “pure cold rage” over the murder of Henry Nowak being wrongly rendered as “white cold rage” - adding an inflammatory racial meaning to words he had not said.
Before that, in 2023, the BBC had to publicly apologise to Farage over its inaccurate reporting of the Coutts debanking scandal, when it reported that Coutts had closed Farage’s account for commercial reasons. In fact, internal documents later revealed that his political views had played a significant role.
If this is the model of “trusted and accurate” news, then we ought to ask: trusted by whom?
For years, millions of voters have felt shut out of the national conversation. They have been told their concerns are “divisive”, “extreme”, or “misinformed”. But these people know what they can see with their own eyes. They know that Britain is not working, that the old parties have failed, and that the media class has a vested interest in maintaining that cosy consensus.
That’s why Reform Daily brings news about Reform UK directly to the public. We can tell people what Reform UK actually believes, without it being distorted by a media establishment that is set against us. We don’t need state-approved broadcasters to tell our supporters what we “really” mean - we can speak for ourselves.
And in a country where the government now seems determined to decide which voices are heard, that matters more than ever.
Picture by: Brett Jordan.
