Elon Musk has confirmed that he is funding legal bills for a doctor previously criticised for her tweets about COVID-19 regulations.
Dr Kulvinder Kaur Gill was cautioned in 2021 by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) over her tweets, including one saying vaccination for Covid was unnecessary.
The paediatrics specialist launched a lawsuit against what she called a "malicious online smear campaign."
Now Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter) said it will defend Dr Gill against what it calls "the government-supported efforts to cancel her speech."
Musk's X Corp has said it will defend Dr Gill in the lawsuit
Facebook/Getty
In a statement on X, a spokesperson from the company said Dr Gill "is a practicing physician in Canada, specializing in immunology and paediatrics.
"Because she spoke out publicly on Twitter (now X) in opposition to the Canadian and Ontario governments’ COVID lockdown efforts and vaccination mandates, she was harassed by the legacy media, censored by prior Twitter management, and subjected to investigations and disciplinary proceedings by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario that resulted in 'cautions' being placed on her permanent public record.
"X will now fund the rest of Dr. Gill’s campaign so that she can pay her $300,000 judgment and her legal bills.
"Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and a critical defence against totalitarianism in all forms. We must do whatever we can to protect it, and at X we will always fight to protect your right to speak freely."
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
Musk bought X in 2022
Reuters
Legal filings do show that Dr Gill previously launched a lawsuit against 23 defendants. The claim was dismissed, awarding costs to the defendants totalling more than $1.1million.
Dr Gill was one of the few Canadian doctors who spoke out strongly against the Canadian Covid regulations early on and would take to X regularly to share her views.
University of Toronto bioethicist Kerry Bowman said that Dr Gill's case is not just about freedom of speech but instead about her responsibility as a physician, saying vaccination for COVID-19 was unnecessary and can cause "a lot of social harm in a crisis."
He said: "When you have a physician, emphasis on physician, saying this, credibility erodes very, very quickly...People will say this is controversial because a physician says vaccines don't work."
CEO of Tesla Elon Musk
Getty
Musk was handed a defeat earlier this week when a US judge threw out his lawsuit against a non-profit group that faulted him for allowing a rise in hate speech on X.
US District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco said it was "evident" that Musk's X Corp sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) because he didn't like its criticism, and thought its research would hurt X's image and scare advertisers away.
He wrote: "X Corp has brought this case in order to punish CCDH for CCDH publications that criticized X Corp--and perhaps in order to dissuade others who might wish to engage in such criticism.
"It is impossible to read the complaint and not conclude that X Corp is far more concerned about CCDH's speech than it is its data collection methods."
X Corp said it plans to appeal the decision.
