BBC boss threatens stars like Gary Lineker with Twitter bans if they break rules

BBC director general Tim Davie is willing to sack stars and hand out Twitter bans if they breach impartiality guidelines.

The channel boss - who was appointed earlier this month - shared that he is willing to take a firm stance on BBC staff when speaking to the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee on Tuesday.

He told MPs: "We are going to be publishing in the next few weeks, and this is imminent, clear social media guidelines, and they will cover both news and current affairs, and beyond news and current affairs.

"We will have, within those guidelines, the enforcement policies will be very clear.

"We will be able to take disciplinary action. We will be able to take people off Twitter. I know people want to see hard action on this."

He added: "If they want to work for the BBC, I can ask people, you would suspend their Twitter account, absolutely."

He also said he was "prepared to take the appropriate disciplinary action - all the way to termination" if stars are not neutral.

The new rules are being drawn up after criticism of stars - such as Gary Lineker - who have stirred up controversy in the past for sharing their political views online.

Speaking on Match of The Day's Gary, Tim said: "I think Gary has always got a flavoursome turn of phrase.

"What I would say is that Gary has said since - the thing is to judge us now as the BBC on what we tweet, how we tweet and our social media profile.

"I think Gary has been very clear. He has said that he is not concerned by what he said. You can let the man speak for himself. "He said he understands his responsibilities as a person within the BBC.

"The good thing is I will be making that even clearer as I go through my social media guidelines."

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