Pro-Kremlin posts attacked BBC after Panorama scandal

Social media accounts linked to pro-Kremlin sources saw a surge in activity in the days surrounding the BBC Panorama scandal, in an apparent attempt to weaponise distrust in the national broadcaster.

- Catherine Neilan & Cormac Kehoe

A spike in Russian-language and Russia-geolocated posts in the first half of this month peaked on 10 November, the day after the resignations of the BBC’s director general Tim Davie and chief executive of BBC News Deborah Turness.

An analysis by Reset Tech for The Observer and BBC Radio 4’s The Naked Week found that on Telegram, posts across 65 channels generated 1.1m views. On X, 1,318 mentions were published by 232 accounts, with the 25 most prominent posts seen more than 800,000 times.

Three main themes emerged from the posts: that the BBC is a tool for disinformation and propaganda; that the Kremlin is supportive of Donald Trump’s legal threats against the BBC and that the licence fee should be abolished.