Elon Musk’s X said it was investing the legal fees of a Canadian doctor who was previously reprimanded by regulators for his tweets about COVID-19.
In a Sunday morning post on the X News account, the company formerly known as Twitter wrote that it was “proud to defend” Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill against what it called “government-backed efforts to cancel his speech. “
In 2021, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) warned the Brampton, Ontario, pediatrician about her tweets, adding one claiming the COVID-19 vaccine was not necessary.
The doctor is pursuing an ongoing crowdfunding crusade asking for $300,000 to pay legal fees, adding a similar price order to a lawsuit she filed in opposition to what she called an “online malicious defamation crusade. “
On March 17, Gill tagged Musk in a message asking for help, saying he had to pay a payment that was due in 4 days.
“That’s $300,000 that I don’t have, after nearly four years of legal battles seeking to protect the interests of my patients,” Gill said in the video. “The situation looks pretty bleak now. “
Gill then posted another video on X on Thursday, saying Musk had pledged to pay for the rest of his crowdfunding crusade and that he would appeal the University’s warnings 2021 “to the end. “
“May Waheguru bless you, Elon,” he said, using the Sikh term for God.
Publicly available court documents show Gill has already filed a lawsuit against 23 defendants. The request was dismissed and awarded the defendants prices totaling more than $1. 1 million.
Gill appealed the dismissal, though only with respect to his claim against four of the defendants, and sought leave to appeal the similar price orders. The appeal was rejected, and the authorization to appeal the price orders was denied.
Last August, Musk posted on X promising to fund the legal fees of those who were “unfairly treated” through their employer “for posting or liking anything on this platform. “
“No limits,” he wrote.
Kerry Bowman, a bioethicist at the University of Toronto, told CBC Radio’s Metro Morning that Musk is “pretty selective about what kind of relaxed speech he’s going to fight. “
Gill’s case isn’t just about free speech, but also about his duty as a doctor, he said, adding that a doctor who says the COVID-19 vaccine is unnecessary can cause “a lot of social harm in a crisis. “
“When you have a doctor and you insist they say that, credibility erodes very, very quickly,” Bowman said. “People will say it’s debatable because a doctor says vaccines don’t work. “
It’s been nearly a year and a half since Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, depriving the once-publicly traded company.
It has since rebranded the X platform and made sweeping changes, dismantling its verification formula and getting rid of most staff, engineers, and moderators.
Experts have expressed fears about the amount of disinformation being posted and algorithmically promoted on X, adding topics such as the war between Israel and Hamas.
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