The platform wants to overcome any coordinated lies that may emerge during the summit, which aims to chart an aggressive course to cut greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming. The negotiations will take place over two weeks, but the two-day summit of leaders began on Monday with about 120 heads of state and government officials.
As the summit is sure to spark more conversations about climate change and the environment online, Twitter is using advancers — “credible, authoritative hubs of information from global experts” — to get ahead of misleading narratives, it said. Elizabeth Busby, a company spokeswoman. .
“These pre-beds will feature an authoritative context on a number of key topics, such as the science underpinning climate change and the realities of global warming,” Busby said.
The platform is focused on raising reliable information from global experts, Busby said. The idea is for users to fill in reliable data before someone else submits them with lies.
Corporate interests have sought to discredit climate science for decades, using a variety of tools to politicize the topic and undermine efforts to limit emissions, according to a 2015 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook – which reach hundreds of millions of users a day – present a massive target for climate change deniers. A 2021 study by researchers from New York University and Brown University concluded that dubious bot accounts were responsible for about 25 percent of climate-related posts in June 2017, before and after newly inaugurated President Donald Trump announced plans to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. The study examined 6.8 million tweets.
Some companies have moved to limit their reach. Last month, YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, issued a policy designed to prevent people from monetizing content that denies climate change.
Facebook, like Twitter, is emphasizing accurate posts and building information centers. At the end of September, the platform launched a glossy video campaign to raise the profile of climate activists. It also added in a company-branded Climate Science Center, designed to give users a centralized source for accurate information on climate change. In some cases, the company has added information tags to posts that redirect people to the Center.
Facebook also announced a $1 million investment in a new grant program, administered by the International Fact-Checking Network, to support organizations working to combat climate disinformation.
“We’re taking steps to make sure people have access to reliable information by reducing climate misinformation, even though it makes up a small amount of the overall climate content in our apps,” according to a blog post by September 16 from the company now. known as Meta.
The name change comes as Facebook has been mired in controversy amid claims it has privately and meticulously tracked real-world harm exacerbated by its platforms and exposed vulnerable communities to a cocktail of dangerous content. A whistleblower last month handed over tens of thousands of internal company documents to Congress and the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Twitter’s announcement on Monday made pointed references to “climate change and the realities of global warming” and a commitment to “keep pace with the urgency of the climate crisis.”
Its terms of service prohibit some forms of “platform manipulation” but do not specifically prohibit people from spreading lies on the subject.
Of Twitter rule ban people from using the app “in a way that aims to artificially amplify or suppress information or engage in behavior that manipulates or disrupts people’s Twitter experience.” This includes “commercial spam”, using fake accounts to influence conversations and or “coordinated harmful activity”, such as encouraging violence.
Busby, the Twitter spokeswoman, did not respond to questions about whether climate misinformation had ever caused a platform violation based on platform manipulation.
correction
An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that former President Donald Trump announced plans to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement in January 2017. He announced the plans in June 2017. This article has been corrected.
