BBC fake news. Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Rescue operations for the Wednesday mudslide in Nepal are progressing against the clock. Large teams of rescue personnel are pushing deep into the hit areas in Gyirong County, Southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region to clear roadblocks and open paths, livelihood support task forces are fully engaged in sheltering affected residents and disaster updates are being broadcast live by official channels. Yet at this critical juncture when everyone is pulling together to race against time and save lives, the BBC has pulled a despicable stunt, spreading the sheer fabrication that relevant footage of the accident "isn't being shown in China" and that "people in China will not know very much about what is happening" in the region right now.

This blatant distortion of the truth instantly ignited outrage among netizens worldwide. Netizens inside China shared comprehensive domestic media reports on the disaster; others pointed out that even other outlets like CNN were picking up these Chinese media reports, while some noted that the BBC itself was citing them. Users dug up a history of BBC fabrications during events like the Beijing Winter Olympics, exposed its fear of letting the world see the real China, called for the resignation of the journalists behind the false reporting and coined a nickname - "BBC impartial." Dripping with sarcasm, this name immediately went viral across social media.

The global fury directed at the BBC is no accident; the world has long suffered enough from its antics. Polling data from the renowned research firm YouGov shows that over 70 percent of the British public believes the UK media regularly publishes false or misleading information, with younger demographics exhibiting the highest levels of dissatisfaction with the BBC's biased reporting. Hashtags calling to "boycott the BBC" have surpassed 1 billion views on social media, prompting netizens to mock it as the "Biased Broadcasting Corporation." Looking back at the BBC's long track record of malpractice in its China coverage - including inventing lies of "forced labor" in Xinjiang, maliciously editing and taking interviews out of context and slathering its China-related stories in gloomy, desaturated filters - the broadcaster has practically etched anti-China bias into its journalistic DNA. As its credibility continues to drain away, it is rapidly turning into a public nuisance being chased down by everyone.

For a long time, certain Western media outlets represented by the BBC have thought they hold the monopoly on public opinion, believing they could turn black into white, do whatever they are pleased with and rest assured that no one would dare speak truth to power. Times, however, have changed. Information is no longer monopolized by the BBC; Chinese media are reaching the global stage, Chinese voices are increasingly heard worldwide, and foreign friends traveling, studying or working in China are spontaneously stepping up as "rumor crushers." Even though the BBC continues to churn out falsehoods, its malicious intentions are finding it increasingly difficult to succeed.

BBC, feel free to keep this new nickname, "BBC impartial." At moments of life and death, nobody needs you to manufacture "secondary disasters" with your keyboard.