Mar 30, 2022
Facebook drives sceptics towards climate denial
Facebook pushes climate sceptics towards increasingly extreme disinformation and conspiracy groups, a human-rights body's research suggests. The researchers had Jane's account "Like" a Facebook page spreading climate disinformation, as a "Starter" page, repeated this process twice, each time choosing a page with at least 14,000 followers, and expressed scepticism about the existence of climate change or its human origins. Two-thirds did not contain a warning label pointing towards Facebook's climate-science centre, an information hub created last year, after Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told a US congressional hearing climate disinformation was "a big issue". Its latest report, backed by 195 governments, emphasises misinformation around climate science "Undermines climate science and disregards risk and urgency". "Facebook is not just a neutral online space where climate disinformation exists - it is quite literally putting such views in front of users' eyes."The climate crisis is increasingly becoming the new culture war, with many of the same individuals who for years have sought to stoke division and polarise opinion now viewing climate as the latest front in their efforts.
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