Twitter is banning advertisements that promote climate change denial in an effort to curb the reach of groups seeking to downplay the extent of the environmental crisis.
Highlights
- Twitter will be relying on reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a unit within the United Nations, to inform its decisions about which advertisements break its rules.
- Twitter’s Friday announcement is part of a larger trend by social media companies to address criticism from activists that they are doing too little to combat climate change disinformation campaigns.
- Research shows that climate change denial groups have managed to evade social media’ content moderation systems to spread falsehoods about the environment such as there is no evidence for the adverse effects of climate change.
- Twitter announced it would start directing users to online hubs containing “credible, authoritative information” on climate change that would appear in users’ “Explore” tabs.