this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2025
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38
UK: Rights group urges House of Lords to block Chinese influence and halt foreign media ownership (www.article19.org)
submitted 5 days ago by Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org to c/europe@feddit.org
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/39000331

Archived

[On] 22 July, the House of Lords will hold a consequential vote on whether to allow up to 15 percent foreign ownership of domestic media, in a long-standing debate that poses potential consequences for information integrity in the UK.

At the heart of the issue is whether to allow the American investment firm RedBird Capital to proceed with its plan to purchase the parent company overseeing the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph and its global distribution. ARTICLE 19 is deeply concerned about the risks posed to media pluralism, transparency, and information integrity by this proposed relaxation of foreign ownership limits without robust safeguards. We note that RedBird Capital’s close ties to China, including through its chairman, John L Thornton, raise risks of Chinese information influence in UK media and globally.

[...]

We recall that a group of MPs and peers expressed, in a letter sent to [British Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport] Lisa Nandy in early June, concerns in this case stem from ‘the lack of transparency regarding the source of the funds behind this acquisition,’ making it ‘conceivable, and increasingly likely, that funds could be sourced directly or indirectly from foreign state actors,’ including China. This risk arises from the close relationship of RedBird Capital chairman, John L Thornton, to China, as argued in the letter.

Thornton’s connections to China are manifold, as outlined in a recent article for Index on Censorship by Luke Pulford, Executive Director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC). Thornton sits on the International Advisory Council of the China Investment Corporation, China’s largest sovereign wealth fund, and chaired the Silk Road Finance Corporation, both vehicles through which China has pursued financial influence. Bloomberg has also reported his ‘solid Chinese connections’, including positions on the boards of the semi-state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and China Unicom Hong Kong, a subsidiary of the State-owned telecommunications operator, which was barred from doing business in the US in 2022 over national security risks. He has also served in advisory roles for the Confucius Institute, which the Henry Jackson Society and the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation identified in a 2022 report as a direct extension of the Chinese Communist Party Propaganda Department in the UK. #

[...]

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[–] adb@lemmy.ml 7 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Good, only domestic billionaires should be allowed to influence public opinion.

[–] shane@feddit.nl 1 points 2 days ago

I mean... it does seem less terrible?

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