Latest News: Defend Campaign issues wake-up call to child safety risks on social media such as X
Media ownership is a big concern
As of 2026 there's a severe imbalance in the distribution of media ownership inevitably increasing potential threats to the operation of diverse, fairer free speech. When Google AI was asked to check the latest status of global wealth and media ownership, it referenced research undertaken by the Guardian newspaper, the charity Oxfam and Forbes and pointed out that the owners of the world's top media and social media companies are not only in the top 1% but typically sit within the top 0.0001% of global wealth holders.
The defend campaign thinks this needs to change and is confident that the public feels the same , but if resources allow, it will undertake initial research within its means to evidence this and to insist that control of media and social media outlets is legally monitored and regulated in the public interest. defend will collaborate internationally where possible and seek and record reaction from those owners to ensure fairer, wide-ranging free speech is maintained.
Key to information set out below:
Owner
Primary Media/Social Asset
Estimated Net Worth
X (formerly Twitter), xAI
$775 Billion
Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads)
$225 Billion
Alphabet (Google, YouTube)
$252 Billion
Alphabet (Google, YouTube)
$232 Billion
The Washington Post, MGM, Amazon Prime Video
$235 Billion
Paramount Skydance (Owner of Paramount Pictures/CBS)
$240 Billion
Bloomberg LP (Bloomberg News)
$45.7 Billion
ByteDance (TikTok, Douyin)
$43.4 Billion
Tencent (WeChat)
$37.8 Billion
Rupert Murdoch
News Corp (Fox News, Wall St Journal, The Sun)
$18.8 Billion
The UK is the grandfather or modern democracy and free speech following its Bill of Rights dating back to 1689