LONDON: Britain and its Western allies must counter “bad actors” who are “flooding” global airwaves and online spaces with “misinformation and disinformation”, the outgoing head of the BBC warned on Thursday.

Tim Davie — who will quit as BBC director general when a replacement is found after the scandal over a misleading edit of a Donald Trump speech — urged increased funding for its World Service arm.

Arguing “the stakes in my lifetime have never been higher”, Davie said the West faces “a battle for who owns the narrative” against adversaries like China and Russia, with misinformation and disinformation now “utterly rife”.

“We have bad actors deliberately trying to affect the mindset of populations domestically and internationally,” he told a watchdog panel of UK lawmakers.

“They’re predatory, and they’re active, and they’re investing, and they’re playing a very long-term game.”

“They are playing over decades to reshape the way people think about the West, the UK,” Davie added, calling the World Service “an asset” essential in that fight.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2026