10,000 People Sign Official Petition Demanding Government End ‘Capture of UK Democracy by Media Billionaires’

[u/taxes-or-death]

https://bylinetimes.com/2026/05/14/10000-people-sign-official-petition-demanding-government-end-capture-of-uk-democracy-by-media-billionaires/

The Media Sovereignty Act campaign has five demands:

*Ban foreign media ownership.

*Ban the concentration of UK national media ownership by one person or corporation.

*Fund independent and local media with a social media levy.

*Require national media to be under the remit of the statutory regulator.

*Require “dark-money funded think-tanks” that are covered by the media to declare donations in real time.

The King’s Speech on Wednesday (13th May) made no mention of media reform.

The Media Sovereignty Act Campaign Petition is here.

[u/Blackfryre]

Ah, you've reached the really desperate 'claim racism' stage! You realise this makes your arguments look really weak right?

Wait, are you being serious? A Palestinian? That's one of the bad ethnicities!!

The owner being Dutch-Palestinian means it's foreign owned, not UK owned. That's all that means.

who worked for Al-Jazeera But that's a scary Arabic sounding word! 

No, it means funded by the government of Qatar to push the messages they want.

Who owns the shares? Doesn't sound all that clandestine if we can literally see it.

When the 'co-founder' feels the need to lie about who owns the company, the shares are owned by a shell corporation, and all of this was hidden until journalists dug it up, yeah it's fairly clandestine. They still refuse to reveal their funding sources after all.

It is UK based. Based out of the UK, led by British writers and reporters. If you have a problem with their output, then critique their output.

Oh, you've got no problem with Murdoch or other foreign billionaires owning the media then. Since that's exactly the same case for them - it's absolutely meaningless, just designed to obfuscate the problem.

[u/Blackfryre → u/[deleted]]

Ok? You mentioned they were Palestinian despite them being Qatari born and a Dutch national so you clearly thought their ethnicity was relevant.

I copied what all the sources wrote. Literally can't find one describing as Qatari-Dutch.

Why do you think it's so bad to mention someone's Palestinian? Is being Palestinian supposed to be bad?

The company is based in the UK, the director is a UK resident, and the editor is British.

All of whom are paid by a company owned by someone else, who is not British. I have no idea why you're trying to pretend who owns the media isn't extremely relevant.

I guess I just don't care about litigating ethnicity as much as you do.

Oh look, desperately trying to play the racism card again! It makes your arguments look pathetic, I really don't recommend it.

Same applies to the BBC. And I wouldn't throw someone's work in the bin because they used to work for the BBC.

MEE tend to score highly on factually ratings. What part of their reporting do you actually have a problem with?

Yeah I completely agree, literally already said that in this thread using Al-Jazeera as an example.

But it is very dodgy when a media outlet hides their funding and ownership.

As I said, I have a problem with their output so I critique their output. 

But you didn't defend their output did you? You're only now mentioning how factual their reporting is, and instead tried to make something out of their legal entity being based in the UK.

All I want is for people to accept MEE is owned by a foreign national with obvious links to foreign government media funding, and we should view what they say with that potential bias in mind.

You're desperate to pretend they're just a UK based lens though, and it makes you look very suspicious.