Is Social Media An Obstacle To Climate Change Action

Twitter was recently described as the ‘wild west’ due to its recent descent into what seems like an ‘anything goes’ culture since the $44bn purchase by Elon Musk. With climate change one of the most important issues facing humanity, is combating it at risk of derailment by social media?

Elon made headlines back in April when he effectively culled half of the Twitter workforce, in what he deemed ‘essential cost-cutting’ measures. Groups of key figures who ensured factual content was pushed to the top of user’s feeds were lost in this exodus and bad actors who had accounts deleted for misinformation were reinstated. A survey by Amnesty International USA found abuse and hate speech have increased on the platform due to the lack of moderation.

One of the groups who’ve been most susceptible to this new barrage of abuse is climate scientists. Professor Richard Betts, chair of climate impacts at Exeter University and head of climate impacts at the Hadley Centre, said: “Outright hostility has increased in recent weeks” and a survey of 468 international climate scientists published by campaign group Global Witness in April found that prominent scientists were the most likely to face abuse, with half of those who had published at least 10 papers reporting they had suffered online harassment as a result of their climate work.

Misinformation Rising

Attempts to derail increasing positive public sentiment towards renewable energy could be at the heart of the cause. In 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identified the role of public relations and advertising in fuelling the climate crisis for the first time.

With several measures against fossil fuels due to begin to come into effect in the coming years, such as gas boiler bans in new UK homes in 2025 and the potential banning of new combustion engine cars by 2030, it’s not difficult to envisage that some in the old industry might be trying to attain a level of self-preservation.

Fossil fuel-linked groups spent around $4 million on Facebook and Instagram ads in 2022 spreading false climate claims during the COP27 summit. The ‘big four’ Shell, Chevron, Exxon and BP funded over 3,700 ads, which were identified as sharing false claims on the Meta-owned platforms.

Researchers also found that the hashtag #ClimateScam spiked on Twitter with 362,000 mentions between July and December.  “Twitter’s search engine pushed #ClimateScam as a top result without any justification for the data behind it,” said Erika Seiber, climate disinformation spokesperson at Friends of the Earth U.S.

Attacks on climate scientists and climate science aren’t a new phenomenon but in the time before Elon’s Twitter, it was easier to decipher through the misinformation. This was due to the level of authority given to the author of a subject by the blue check mark verification system.

A 2019 study by researchers at the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca and the University of Siena in Italy, in which they analysed climate denial on Twitter, found that for such messages on that platform to be effective, the poster needs to have a certain level of credibility. Looking at tweets from 2007 to 2017, they found the impact of climate-denying posts was limited.

Paying For A Platform

With the introduction of Twitter Blue, which for a small fee, will gain you a blue checkmark – posts that spread misinformation with this add-on can appear higher in the search results and command an air of credibility, even if they are false.

Social media hasn’t just been a dangerous pit of increasing falsehoods and misinformation. 75% of people polled are more likely to take up positive behaviours to help save the planet after watching social media content about sustainability.

Grassroots Influence

The rise of influence activists such as Greta Thunberg wouldn’t have happened without it and climate activist groups such as Extinction Rebellion also rely on rallying people through hashtags and social media content.

Most recently, 60,000 people attended #TheBigOne protest on Earth Day, rallying for more effective action on climate change. These numbers wouldn’t be reached without the help of social media.

Analysis by NewsWhip also found that engagement with climate change content, specifically the type urging action to combat it on social media has generally grown year-on-year with another 78% admitting social media is the information source most likely to encourage them to act more sustainably.

Whilst there are positives to rival the louder negatives, what social media sites like Twitter don’t want to descend into is a battleground of warring factions on either side, battling for credibility, with each deploying outlandish tactics to rank higher than the other. The potential to fall into an echo chamber and disregard anything outside of that is increasingly higher on the internet.

The way to avoid a scenario of being stuck between a rock and a hard place, particularly for Elon’s Twitter 2.0 is with enhanced moderation returning to split the facts from the fiction. Or the continuous sleepwalk into oblivion with climate change will be inevitable.

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