Toby Young Toby Young

Did the BBC silence lockdown sceptics?

issue 17 June 2023

Did the BBC breach its own impartiality rules by keeping critics of the government’s pandemic response off the air during the first lockdown? I first made that accusation in 2020 in a witness statement I submitted to the High Court in an effort to challenge Ofcom’s ‘coronavirus guidance’, which I argued was a factor in the BBC’s one-sided coverage. The attempt failed, with Ofcom able to convince the court that its guidance only cautioned against broadcasting ‘harmful’ content.

Part of my evidence, which I remember being slightly embarrassed to submit, was that my invitations to appear on the BBC had dwindled to almost nothing since I’d become a critic of lockdown policy. I’ve spoken to other lockdown sceptics and they say the same thing, but it’s impossible to prove we were kept off the airwaves because of our heretical views. In my case, it might just be because the Beeb had decided I’d become a bit of a bore.

When dissenting experts did slip through the net, they weren’t always given a fair hearing 

But a recent investigation by the Telegraph into the Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU), a secret ‘cell’ in Whitehall that worked with the government during the pandemic to monitor ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’, suggests that the BBC’s editorial independence may have been compromised. The head of the CDU, Sarah Connolly, says that one of its functions was ‘passing information’ to social media companies to ‘encourage… the swift takedown’ of posts it regarded as suspect. That’s worrying because we know that the CDU ignored an instruction from the Cabinet Office not to include ‘opinions’ in its definition of mis- and disinformation. Among the content flagged by the censors were criticisms of the government’s decision to close schools by Molly Kingsley, the co-founder of a children’s campaign group.

Did the CDU’s attempts to suppress dissent extend to the BBC? Connolly also chaired the Counter Disinformation Policy Forum, a group that included academics, lobbyists, tech companies and – crucially – a representative from the BBC.

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