The BBC has failed to respond to allegations of spreading fake news on its new disinformation division’s flagship podcast Marianna in Conspiracyland.

The BBC was given several opportunities to respond to allegations of fake news but, at the time of writing, has not. The claims concern alleged fake news spread by Disinformation and Social Media correspondent Marianna Spring about former UKIP MEP candidate and host of the Lotus Eaters podcast, Carl Benjamin.

In the very first instalment of BBC Radio 4’s Marianna in Conspiracyland podcast, which detailed the supposed radicalisation of people in the sleepy town of Totnes in Western England, Spring falsely claimed that Benjamin’s YouTube channel Sargon of Akkad is currently suspended by the platform. Although the British conservative political commentator is currently more active on his Lotus Eaters channel, his original YouTube channel is not blocked and is still occasionally used by Benjamin. The channel was reportedly demonetised by YouTube in 2019.

[I am so tickled about all the revelations. Does it seem to you that, since Elon purchased Twitter, there has been a veritable flood of these sorts of GOTCHA!s finally emerging into the general sphere? As well as suppressed voices and their facts finally being heard? It’s marvelous and I know there has to be a general panic that they “can’t stop the signal” as easily as they once did. You know they’re desperately searching for the mechanism to shut it all down again. ~ Beege]