OTTAWA — Elon Musk’s rising “meddling” in politics and up to date adjustments at Meta to eradicate fact-checking make Conservative Chief Pierre Poilievre’s promise to defund the CBC much more consequential, mentioned Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge.
She mentioned the problem isn’t about left or right-wing politics, or “even if you like the CBC or not.”
“It’s about talking about killing one of the most important sources of information for Canadians at a time where we know that the information system is controlled by foreign billionaires,” St-Onge mentioned in an interview. “And to me it’s very preoccupying to see that (Poilievre) doesn’t understand that.”
A supporter of incoming U.S. president Donald Trump, Musk has change into an more and more controversial and political determine lately, significantly since shopping for Twitter and rebranding it as X. Musk has additionally lately waded into Canadian politics, attacking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and praising Poilievre.
“What we’ve been witnessing in the past few weeks is a guy, a billionaire that owns a very influential platform, meddling in other countries’ elections and politics, and he’s doing it in Canada,” St-Onge mentioned.
“We know and all the experts know that with everything happening online on social media, we know that we cannot trust these platforms as sources of information.”
Meta, in the meantime, introduced earlier this month that it’s changing third-party fact-checking with “community notes” written by customers, just like the mannequin utilized by Musk’s X.
The introduced adjustments to content material moderation on Fb and Instagram had been lengthy sought by conservatives. The neighborhood notes mannequin will launch within the U.S. earlier than increasing to different nations. Specialists have warned the adjustments might result in extra misinformation.
Requested about strikes by these platforms towards Trump-friendly insurance policies or in direction of being overtly right-wing, St-Onge mentioned “it’s extremely dangerous. Communication and information is the heart of democracy and of the election process.”
The Liberal authorities has clashed with Meta over the corporate’s determination to dam information content material on its platforms, in response to Liberal laws that will have pressured Meta to compensate information retailers for displaying their content material.
St-Onge’s feedback come because the federal Liberals have launched a management race to exchange Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and opposition events are angling for an early election that would see Canadians head to the voting sales space this spring.
Poilievre has pledged that if he’s elected to authorities, he’ll defund English-language CBC whereas preserving Francophone information. In response to a request for touch upon St-Onge’s criticisms, a spokesperson for Poilievre pointed to the Conservative chief’s latest feedback on Musk.
Poilievre didn’t straight reply when requested whether or not he accepts Musk’s endorsement, however mentioned it will be “nice if we could convince Mr. Musk to open some of his factories here in Canada.”
St-Onge accused Poilievre of “kissing up to Elon Musk.”
“I’m worried that Poilievre is saying that he’s for sale, and that he’s willing to sell Canada to these tech geeks and willing to destroy our independent news ecosystem.”
St-Onge, who has promised a renewed mandate for the general public broadcaster, mentioned Poilievre’ plan would imply defunding a “Canadian institution that hires a third of Canadian journalists” and comes “at a time when president Trump is talking about annexing Canada to the United States.”
At a latest information convention, Trump threatened to make use of “economic force” to make Canada the 51st state. Musk has been tagged by Trump to co-lead a brand new “Department of Government Efficiency.”
St-Onge mentioned that with Musk being part of the Trump administration, X is “not an independent source of information.”
“It’s extremely preoccupying because a lot of people think that they are getting informed with these platforms and with Facebook and [Meta CEO Mark] Zuckerberg, we’ve seen that they don’t really care about that.”
As an alternative, St-Onge mentioned, they care concerning the backside line, “their billions” and “the power that their platform gives them.”
–With recordsdata from the Related Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Jan. 14, 2025.
Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press
The CBC emblem is projected onto a display through the CBC’s annual upfront presentation at The Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto, Wednesday, Might 29, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tijana Martin
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