Thread by @kevinmarks

I'm sure @RobBurl and @afneil are patting each other on the back after their interview with that American racist yesterday took off on twitter, and that the BBC more broadly are defending their "news judgment" in coincidentally wallpapering the schedules with Farage

But what they are doing is not just a breach of the Reithian legacy, but something much more sinister. The systemic problem with algorithmic suggestion led media is that in chasing 'engagement' it amplifies extremism.

Watch one or two YouTube videos about an issue and the sidebar fills up with more and more extreme - here's what will autoplay after the two that @RobBurl linked to yesterday, for example

@RobBurl When @RobBurl defends this use of 16 minutes of airtime during an election campaign with “We do so because he has millions of followers on social media and is hugely influential, particularly among young people worldwide.”

https://twitter.com/RobBurl/status/1126796771865370625

He is delegating his editorial judgment to these same inflammatory algorithms that he purports to be defending us from. This is not in keeping with the spirit of the BBC Charter editorial guidelines bbc.co.uk/editorialguide…

Public Purposes are:
•sustaining citizenship and civil society
•promoting education and learning
•stimulating creativity and cultural excellence
•representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities
•bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK

and finally:
•in promoting its other purposes, helping to deliver to the public the benefit of emerging communications technologies and services and, in addition, taking a leading role in the switchover to digital television

Now I'm sure he can tapdance around those a bit, but amplifying the likes of Shapiro is not a benefit of emerging communications technologies, but one of their biggest drawbacks. The BBC could and should do better than this.

What we need more than ever is the kind of Public Service Media exemplified by the motto on the BBC's crest - "Nation shall speak peace unto nation"
The kind of media that the BBC does still create, but is sidelined by ratings chasing spectacle instead.