Climate Misinformation Has Proliferated on Twitter Since Musk's Takeover
Yuri Samoilov via Flickr
Misleading posts about climate change have flourished on Twitter since Elon Musk took charge of the company in October, according to a new report.
“What’s happening in the information ecosystem poses a direct threat to action,” Jennie King, head of climate disinformation at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which produced the report, told the Associated Press. “It plants those seeds of doubt and makes people think maybe there isn’t scientific consensus.”
The report finds that Twitter is actively recommending the term “climate scam” to users who searched for “climate” during the UN climate talks in November. The report found that “climate scam” often appeared as the top result in searches, despite greater user engagement with other terms relating to climate change. The report says that it’s unclear why “climate scam” gained more prominence than these other terms, adding that the trend highlights “the need for transparency on how and why platforms surface content to users.”
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A recent analysis undertaken by the University of London found that tweets rejecting climate science hit an all-time high last year. As of December, there were more than 850,000 climate-skeptical tweets or retweets in 2022, as compared with 650,000 in 2021 and 220,000 in 2020.
Since Musk took over Twitter, several prominent climate deniers who had been banned from the platform for spreading misinformation about Covid-19 have had their accounts restored.
“My Twitter account and many others opposing the ‘consensus’ climate view have all increased visibility dramatically since Musk took over Twitter,” Marc Morano, a prominent climate denier, told E&E News in December. “Whatever Musk is altering, I hope he keeps it up.”
Climate crisis misinformation is thriving on Elon Musk's Twitter, research shows
Beatrice Nolan
Fri, January 20, 2023
The #ClimateScam hashtag suddenly spiked on Twitter in July 2022 and has been increasing ever since, per the report.
Misinformation about the environment is flourishing on Elon Musk's Twitter, a study said.
The study said Twitter recommended "#ClimateScam" when users search for "climate."
The hashtag suddenly spiked on Twitter in July 2022 and has been increasing since, per the study.
Misinformation about the climate crisis is flourishing on Elon Musk's Twitter, according to a study.
The study, published on Thursday by Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD), said Twitter was recommending the hashtag "#ClimateScam" when users search "climate." At the time of publication, Twitter was recommending the hashtag to several Insider employees as the top search result for "climate."
Referencing the hashtag, the study said that "in 2022, denialist content made a stark comeback on Twitter in particular."
The hashtag suddenly spiked on Twitter in July, and had been on an upwards trajectory ever since, the study said. By December, more than 91,000 unique users had mentioned the tag more than 362,000 times, it added.
The report said the term appeared to be trending despite "data that shows more activity and engagement on other hashtags such as #ClimateCrisis and #ClimateEmergency." The researchers added that its prominence couldn't be explained by personalization, volume of content, or popularity.
The source of the #ClimateScam hashtag was unclear and highlighted the need for transparency on how content was surfaced to users, per the study.
Only some of the content under the hashtag was labeled as misinformation, the report said.
Elon Musk has slashed Twitter's content moderation team since he bought the platform in October last year. He has also taken issue with some of Twitter's past content moderation decisions, including the suspension of former US president Donald Trump following the January 6 Capitol riots.
Representatives for Twitter did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Climate misinformation 'rocket boosters' on Musk's Twitter
DAVID KLEPPER
Thu, January 19, 2023
WASHINGTON (AP) — Search for the word “climate” on Twitter and the first automatic recommendation isn't “climate crisis” or “climate jobs” or even “climate change” but instead “climate scam.”
Clicking on the recommendation yields dozens of posts denying the reality of climate change and making misleading claims about efforts to mitigate it.
Such misinformation has flourished on Twitter since it was bought by Elon Musk last year, but the site isn't the only one promoting content that scientists and environmental advocates say undercuts public support for policies intended to respond to a changing climate.
“What's happening in the information ecosystem poses a direct threat to action," said Jennie King, head of climate research and response at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based nonprofit. “It plants those seeds of doubt and makes people think maybe there isn't scientific consensus.”
The institute is part of a coalition of environmental advocacy groups that on Thursday released a report tracking climate change disinformation in the months before, during and after the U.N. climate summit in November.
The report faulted social media platforms for, among other things, failing to enforce their own policies prohibiting climate change misinformation. It is only the latest to highlight the growing problem of climate misinformation on Twitter.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, allowed nearly 4,000 advertisements on its site — most bought by fossil fuel companies — that dismissed the scientific consensus behind climate change and criticized efforts to respond to it, the researchers found.
In some cases, the ads and the posts cited inflation and economic fears as reasons to oppose climate policies, while ignoring the costs of inaction. Researchers also found that a significant number of the accounts posting false claims about climate change also spread misinformation about U.S. elections, COVID-19 and vaccines.
Twitter did not respond to questions from The Associated Press. A spokesperson for Meta cited the company's policy prohibiting ads that have been proven false by its fact-checking partners, a group that includes the AP. The ads identified in the report had not been fact-checked.
Under Musk, Twitter laid off thousands of employees and made changes to its content moderation that its critics said undercut the effort. In November, the company announced it would no longer enforce its policy against COVID-19 misinformation. Musk also reinstated many formerly banned users, including several who had spread misleading claims about climate change. Instances of hate speech and attacks on LGBTQ people soared.
Tweets containing “climate scam” or other terms linked to climate change denial rose 300% in 2022, according to a report released last week by the nonprofit Advance Democracy. While Twitter had labeled some of the content as misinformation, many of the popular posts were not labeled.
Musk's new verification system could be part of the problem, according to a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, another organization that tracks online misinformation. Previously, the blue checkmarks were held by people in the public eye such as journalists, government officials or celebrities.
Now, anyone willing to pay $8 a month can seek a checkmark. Posts and replies from verified accounts are given an automatic boost on the platform, making them more visible than content from users who don't pay.
When researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate analyzed accounts verified after Musk took over, they found they spread four times the amount of climate change misinformation compared with users verified before Musk's purchase.
Verification systems are typically created to assure users that the accounts they follow are legitimate. Twitter's new system, however, makes no distinction between authoritative sources on climate change and anyone with $8 and an opinion, according to Imran Ahmed, the center's chief executive.
“We found,” Ahmed said, “it has in fact put rocket boosters on the spread of lies and disinformation.”
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This story has been updated to correct the last name of Imran Ahmed.
DAVID KLEPPER
Thu, January 19, 2023
WASHINGTON (AP) — Search for the word “climate” on Twitter and the first automatic recommendation isn't “climate crisis” or “climate jobs” or even “climate change” but instead “climate scam.”
Clicking on the recommendation yields dozens of posts denying the reality of climate change and making misleading claims about efforts to mitigate it.
Such misinformation has flourished on Twitter since it was bought by Elon Musk last year, but the site isn't the only one promoting content that scientists and environmental advocates say undercuts public support for policies intended to respond to a changing climate.
“What's happening in the information ecosystem poses a direct threat to action," said Jennie King, head of climate research and response at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based nonprofit. “It plants those seeds of doubt and makes people think maybe there isn't scientific consensus.”
The institute is part of a coalition of environmental advocacy groups that on Thursday released a report tracking climate change disinformation in the months before, during and after the U.N. climate summit in November.
The report faulted social media platforms for, among other things, failing to enforce their own policies prohibiting climate change misinformation. It is only the latest to highlight the growing problem of climate misinformation on Twitter.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, allowed nearly 4,000 advertisements on its site — most bought by fossil fuel companies — that dismissed the scientific consensus behind climate change and criticized efforts to respond to it, the researchers found.
In some cases, the ads and the posts cited inflation and economic fears as reasons to oppose climate policies, while ignoring the costs of inaction. Researchers also found that a significant number of the accounts posting false claims about climate change also spread misinformation about U.S. elections, COVID-19 and vaccines.
Twitter did not respond to questions from The Associated Press. A spokesperson for Meta cited the company's policy prohibiting ads that have been proven false by its fact-checking partners, a group that includes the AP. The ads identified in the report had not been fact-checked.
Under Musk, Twitter laid off thousands of employees and made changes to its content moderation that its critics said undercut the effort. In November, the company announced it would no longer enforce its policy against COVID-19 misinformation. Musk also reinstated many formerly banned users, including several who had spread misleading claims about climate change. Instances of hate speech and attacks on LGBTQ people soared.
Tweets containing “climate scam” or other terms linked to climate change denial rose 300% in 2022, according to a report released last week by the nonprofit Advance Democracy. While Twitter had labeled some of the content as misinformation, many of the popular posts were not labeled.
Musk's new verification system could be part of the problem, according to a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, another organization that tracks online misinformation. Previously, the blue checkmarks were held by people in the public eye such as journalists, government officials or celebrities.
Now, anyone willing to pay $8 a month can seek a checkmark. Posts and replies from verified accounts are given an automatic boost on the platform, making them more visible than content from users who don't pay.
When researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate analyzed accounts verified after Musk took over, they found they spread four times the amount of climate change misinformation compared with users verified before Musk's purchase.
Verification systems are typically created to assure users that the accounts they follow are legitimate. Twitter's new system, however, makes no distinction between authoritative sources on climate change and anyone with $8 and an opinion, according to Imran Ahmed, the center's chief executive.
“We found,” Ahmed said, “it has in fact put rocket boosters on the spread of lies and disinformation.”
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This story has been updated to correct the last name of Imran Ahmed.
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