Ministers are considering rules that would make BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 content easier to find on Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, as more Britons get their news from feeds.
Britain’s culture department said on Monday that it is considering requiring social media platforms to make content from public service media and other trusted news providers easier to find in feeds and searches.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) named Meta’s Facebook, Alphabet-owned YouTube, and TikTok as the kind of platforms that could fall under such rules, which would push outlets including the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 higher up the places where people now look for news.
The reasoning rests on data from the media regulator, Ofcom. Social media is now a main news source for a majority of UK adults, and for around three-quarters of those aged 16 to 24, the department said.
The implication is that the gatekeeping once done by broadcasters and front pages has migrated to recommendation algorithms, and that the public service outlets the country funds and regulates are competing for attention against everything else in the feed.The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
