Climate Change Denial

On the web, you will come across a variety of views on global warming. Although scientists have been warning and constantly convincing us of climate catastrophe for years, there are denialists who don’t care about these warnings. Twitter has decided to crack down on climate denialists.

Twitter, Facebook, and Google against climate denialism

One of the most active and successful social media platforms wants to crack down on global climate change denialism. Although Facebook donated $1 million in 2020 to address climate misinformation, it has not had the desired effect. The Climate Science Information Centre, which was established, has not stopped promoting posts that spread doubt about climate change.

This month, photo platform Pinterest announced that it too would ban any posts dismissing climate change content and remove those it finds. Last year, the Google giant announced that it would block ads that negate key climate science content.

Is Twitter better at fighting lies than Facebook?

Will Twitter, better than Facebook, tackle climate change denialism and stop the spiral of climate denialism? On international Earth Day, Twitter announced that it would ban any content, especially advertising, that “contradicts the scientific consensus on climate change.” The announcement came just hours before the EU’s official announcement on the tech companies’ contribution to controlling disinformation on their portals.

– “[We believe that] climate denialism should not be paid for on Twitter, and false advertising should not distract from important content and discussion about the climate crisis,” Twitter representatives wrote in the official announcement.

Where does Twitter get real information about the state of the climate?

Twitter said it will base its analysis of the content on the site on reliable scientific sources, such as the extensive reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC. Sustainability executives have referred to the latest IPCC report warning of the direst consequences of global warming from the outset. Twitter representatives are unanimous in saying that the spread of false information about climate change is influenced by politicians, extremely active on this social network. The company is expected to provide more information about the new rules soon.

For example, in 2021, as many as 25% of the tweets that appeared during Donald Trump’s term were sent by bots, and their content illustrated a skeptical approach to climate science. During the 2021 COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, scientists and activists sent a letter to the CEOs of prominent social media sites. In it, they asked that disinformation about climate change be blocked.