Online disinformation putting social fabric at risk, says Davie

Britain's status as a cohesive, democratic society is at risk for the first time in a generation as the rise of social media platforms and disinformation fuel a "trust crisis", Tim Davie, the BBC's director general, has warned.

- Michael Savage

In a wide-ranging address about the future of the corporation, he said BBC News would start to make special content for platforms where disinformation could go unchecked, such as YouTube and TikTok, and characterised the corporation as a "precious national asset" preventing the UK from becoming a society in which there were no shared facts.

"The future of our cohesive, democratic society feels for the first time in my life at risk," Davie said during a speech in Salford. "I don't want to catastrophise. We have so much to be proud of in the UK: our tolerance, our innovative spirit, our creativity, our humour, our sense of fairness. But I think that unless we act, we will drift, becoming weaker, less trusting, less competitive."