For Immediate Release: January 7, 2025 (Sudbury): The solution to the pressing crises we face—climate change, misinformation, and inequality—lies in protecting and strengthening democracy and it is under attack by oligarchs who seemingly seek to dismantle it. MP Charlie Angus is leading the way, showing us how we can take action now. He is calling for Elections Canada to investigate Elon Musk for election interference. “The climate crisis is worsening, and it is crucial that people are informed with accurate facts. MP Angus is rightly drawing attention to the problem,” says Cathy Orlando, Director of Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada. “Rampant misinformation is jeopardizing our fundamental right to a liveable planet. Social media moguls must be held accountable for the harm they cause, just as the Canadian Press is held to account through direct feedback from the public and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).” A healthy democracy requires balance among the “Five Estates”: the Executive (Prime Minister and Cabinet), the Legislative (Parliament), the Judiciary (courts), an accountable Press, and the People. Notably, countries with strong, well-funded, and independent public media are linked to healthier democracies. However, this balance is now deteriorating, with Musk playing a leading role. Consider this: between November 2023 and October 2024 “grassroots” campaigns, fossil fuel companies and politicians spent over $1 million on Meta platforms spreading emotionally-charged misinformation about carbon pricing. Meta’s recent retreat from fact-checking severs a last link to fact-based news in news deserts across the world and needs to be addressed as well. But, at the forefront of this attack on democracies is Musk. He is the grandson of individuals who supported far-right ideologies and fled to South Africa, where they lived under apartheid, a system they admired. Musk’s infamous hand gesture, enthusiastically repeated twice with grunts while standing at a lectern bearing the Presidential Seal, was praised by far-right figures worldwide. Nick Fuentes, the Hitler admirer who dined with Trump in 2022, described Musk’s gesture as “a straight-up Sieg Heil, like loving Hitler energy,” and, according to reporter Rachel Gilmore, Nazi Telegram channels lit up in response to it. A 2024 NBC investigation reported that Musk’s choices have allowed antisemitism and neo-Nazism to “flourish” on the platform, identifying hundreds of neo-Nazi accounts gaining in influence under Musk’s new policies. A recent study analyzing over 32 million tweets from 8,200 parliamentarians across 26 countries found that radical-right populists are significantly more likely to spread misinformation compared to other political groups. In the summer of 2024, Musk’s Twitter changed algorithms to favour right-wing content after endorsing Donald Trump in the lead-up to the US election. In Canada bots on Twitter artificially amplified Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s tour, with fake accounts promoting his appearances in Northern Ontario. Musk’s actions are not going unnoticed. From August 30 to October 8, 2024, Brazil blocked Twitter due to non-compliance with legal orders, resolved after fines, appointing a representative, and deactivating far-right accounts. The European Union is investigating Musk’s Twitter for potentially amplifying far-right posts. Over 60 German universities have exited Twitter, and in December, the European Federation of Journalists, representing nearly 300,000 journalists globally, left Twitter, citing its transformation under Musk into a “machine of disinformation and propaganda”. As well, some subReddit communities are banning tweets. If you haven’t already, exit Twitter——or at least remove it from your phone to escape the rampant misinformation, polarization, and emotional manipulation. A great alternative is BlueSky. It’s algorithm-free, user-controlled, open source, and thus cannot be co-opted by billionaires. You can also follow Charlie Angus’s lead and write to Stéphane Perrault, Chief Electoral Officer to Stephane.Perrault@elections.ca and demand: We have the power to protect our democracy by restoring integrity to our information systems and making social media a tool for progress, not division. ###########Defending Democracy: Charlie Angus Leads Charge Against Disinformation
Media Contact: Cathy Orlando, 705-929-4043 cathy@citizensclimate.org
The decline of media outlets in Canada has accelerated over the past two decades with 169 local media outlets closing between 2008 and 2016 and many others reducing services. This trend continued in 2017 with the asset swap between Torstar and Postmedia and worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Postmedia closed 15 community newspapers and SaltWire Network suspended weekly publications on the East Coast.
