The Toronto Star regularly attacks Elon Musk and his platform, Twitter. Yet, they keep sending Musk advertising dollars.
Ever wonder? If the Toronto Star keeps saying how awful Elon Musk and Twitter is, why do they keep sending Musk money in the form of advertising dollars to support his platform? This is the question I find myself asking today.
It’s no secret that mainstream media has a major hypocrisy problem with Elon Musk and X/Twitter. This is, in fact, something I covered last month where the mainstream media accuses Musk and X/Twitter of being a threat to democracy, fuelling hate, and overall making the world a worse place. Yet, at the same time, most of them continue to support Musk’s platform by continuing to post links to their news articles on the platform. It’s pure hypocrisy all the way down.
The thing is, the hypocrisy doesn’t really end there. As we are learning today, some are even going so far as to send Musk money to help support his platform in the form of advertising dollars on top of it all. That is something we’ve noticed lately with the Toronto Star. Yesterday, we just so happen to have noticed this ad appear on X/Twitter:
Now, this is an ad. While we don’t know exactly how much money is being sent Musk’s way, we do know that money is being shovelled Musk’s way in the first place because of this from the Toronto Star.
Like many other many other mainstream media outlets, The Toronto Star has aired many grievances towards Twitter and Elon Musk. Here’s a sample of the headlines we couldn’t help but notice:
Why weird ads about Sophie Trudeau, Howie Mandel — and Mary Berg — mean we’re in trouble online
Why Twitter — now X — serves you bad information on the Israel-Hamas war
Twitter labels CBC account as ‘government-funded media’
Do ‘parody’ Twitter accounts pose real political threats?
Welcome to the last happy place Donald Trump has left: The warped and glitchy world of Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s hellsite isn’t making us fall for Pierre Poilievre. It’s doing something far scarier
Elon Musk’s misinformation about Canada a dangerous sign
UK government calls on Elon Musk to act responsibly amid provocative posts as unrest grips country
Yeah, you get the idea. Elon Musk is an extremist that is using X/Twitter to attack at the very foundations of democracy and warping your mind. Are some of these attacks valid? Probably. Whether or not you agree with the Toronto Star about Musk and X/Twitter doesn’t really matter much. While the Toronto Star is happily pointing out all the horribleness that is X/Twitter (along with the manchild that runs it), apparently, that isn’t enough to deter the Toronto Star from shovelling money Musk’s way, either.
While that is bad enough, there’s something else to remember in all of this. When the Online News Act became a complete and total failure, the Canadian government responded by issuing a massive bailout to the mainstream media. The Toronto Star is likely a recipient of this. What the terms of that bailout are or what restrictions may apply is unknown. What we do know is that taxpayers money is flooding these news rooms to cover up the managerial incompetence that got those organizations there in the first place. It’s entirely possible that Canadian taxpayers money is going to fund Elon Musk and X/Twitter in the form of advertising dollars. Even if I ask, it’s unlikely the Toronto Star is willing to say.
The worst thing about this, however, is the fact that these ads appearing next to harmful and illegal material on X/Twitter has been a long standing problem. This was well documented last year when advertisers began noticing that their ads were appearing next to white supremacy content and CSAM material. It’s hard to say if that has been an issue that was ever resolved. Still, knowing that most of X/Twitter is cryptocurrency scams, hate speech, and porn bot spam, it’s not that hard to imagine that the Toronto Star is inadvertently sponsoring such material in the process. It is, after all, a big reason why many advertisers left X/Twitter in the first place and how we got into the completely insane situation of Elon Musk suing advertisers for failure to advertise on their platform.
There’s no way that the Toronto Star isn’t aware of all of this. They knew that they were sponsoring material from the worst society has to offer. They knew why the platform is a hellscape. Yet, despite that, they chose to advertise anyway.
Now, before anyone tells me that there are no alternatives in light of the mainstream media kicking themselves off of Meta platforms, Google ads and Youtube still exists. There’s also Reddit that offers advertising services. So, it’s not as though X/Twitter is the only place to advertise for major media companies. After all, we do know there are very good reasons why X/Twitter’s value has sunk 79% since Musk took over.
The Toronto Star continuing to advertising on X/Twitter shows a remarkable level of hypocrisy. The news organization has no problem pointing out how the platform is a threat to democracy, spreads disinformation, is a vector for foreign interference, fuels hate speech, and so on. Yet, for all the awfulness that they see in the platform, they still somehow come to the conclusion that they should financially support both X/Twitter and Elon Musk with the way both are today. It’s a stunning lack of judgment that was just begging to be called out on.
