The 62-year-old will not host the hugely popular British football show until an agreement has been reached with the organisation over his social media use, after he criticised the UK government's new asylum policy on Tuesday.
In a statement, the BBC said: "The BBC has been in extensive discussions with Gary and his team in recent days. We have said that we consider his recent social media activity to be a breach of our guidelines.
"The BBC has decided that he will step back from presenting Match Of The Day until we've got an agreed and clear position on his use of social media.
"When it comes to leading our football and sports coverage, Gary is second to none.
"We have never said that Gary should be an opinion-free zone, or that he can't have a view on issues that matter to him, but we have said that he should keep well away from taking sides on party political issues or political controversies."
Lineker used Twitter to condemn the government policy, posting: "There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I'm out of order?"
Shortly after the BBC's announcement that Lineker would not be involved on Saturday, pundit and former Arsenal striker Ian Wright stated he would not be on the Premier League highlights show either, out of choice in his case.
"Everybody knows what Match of the Day means to me, but I've told the BBC I won't be doing it tomorrow [Saturday]. Solidarity," Wright posted on Twitter.
Arsenal great Ian Wright became the latest high-profile footballer to complain about being targeted for abuse, which has led to a police investigation in Ireland.
Now Ferdinand, who starred in the Premier League for QPR, Newcastle United and Tottenham, says racism from keyboard warriors will persist unless stringent steps are taken by tech giants.
He told Stats Perform: "One of the things I've been looking at, with all this COVID situation, I'm seeing things taken down off social media where people put an opinion about what they think COVID-19's all about, and that's been taken down off YouTube, that's been taken down off Facebook.
"All this sort of stuff has been taken down, but they allow racist abuse to float freely through their channels.
"Until these people decide to do something about it, this problem will remain."
Representatives of major English football authorities met with several social media companies last year in an effort to press the point about players being targeted online.
Wright complained of being abused on Instagram, while players including Manchester City forward Raheem Sterling, Watford striker Troy Deeney and Crystal Palace winger Wilfried Zaha have faced vile remarks on a number of platforms, based around their skin colour.
The problem is widespread, and Ferdinand wants there to be greater accountability.
He said: "You can set up a social media account with it being [identifiable as] you and you can racially abuse people.
"Let's remember some years ago it was seen as part of parcel [of football] for people to go into a stadium and racially abuse people of a different background to them and it was accepted.
"People could do monkey chants and people could throw bananas on the pitch and then walk out at the end and that was it.
"This is another avenue. They can't do it in the stadiums too freely now because you've got CCTV cameras and we have people who may do something about in it in the stadiums.
"But from sitting behind a keyboard it's easy to throw out these things - and I continue to say racism isn't a problem in football, it's a problem in society."
Now director of football at QPR, Ferdinand played for the club from 1987 to 1995, a time when racism inside grounds was rifer than it is in the modern era.
He said: "Football has just been a medium in the past where people go and vent it without any repercussions.
"So those same people that were doing it back then - okay, generations have changed, but there's still racist people in society and they'll find a way to be racist, and this is the easiest way to do it without any identification going back to that person."
