Flashnote

Climate change is the defining challenge of our era. Human-induced global warming is altering the atmosphere, ocean currents, biodiversity and ecosystems on which all life depends. Millions of people are already dying every year from ambient pollution and hundreds of millions are likely to become climate-displaced in the coming decades. The latest IPCC report warns that if the world does not decarbonize within the next decade it could sail past the 2C threshold with disastrous consequences. Despite virtually unanimous scientific consensus on the causes and consequences of climate change, what explains the slow pace of response? 

A new white paper from SecDev examines the dangerous threat posed by online climate-related disinformation and misinformation. Surprising as it may seem in the current polarized moment, there was once widespread consensus on the need to reduce greenhouse gasses and decarbonize the economy. During the 1980s, climate action was a bipartisan issue in the US. But that consensus unravelled in the early 1990s when the fossil fuel industry disinformation and misinformation machine kicked into high gear and began spreading climate scepticism and denialism via conservative think tanks.  

A dangerous threat

The impacts of decades of climate misinformation and disinformation are far-reaching. While most people around the world today believe climate change is human-induced, there is a pervasive (false) perception that scientists are divided on the issue. Researchers refer to this as the consensus gap. It turns out that a relatively small dose of misinformation and disinformation can lower acceptance of climate change. One lesson is that a small but vocal group of deniers can have a disproportionate impact on public opinion. 

Climate misinformation and disinformation has evolved over the years. With extreme weather events such as wildfires, heatwaves and glacial melting harder to ignore, there has been a shift from denialism to “distraction”, “delay” and “inactivism”. The goal is increasingly to highlight the “uncertainty” of climate science, the “benefits” of global warming, and the “risks” of government-led mitigation. A focus on “solution misinformation” is also a common way to stymie green or renewable energy measures from the Paris Climate Agreement to carbon pricing bills and green energy subsidies. 

Spreading on social media

Several categories of climate misinformation and disinformation are circulating across social media. These can challenge trends (global warming is not new); deny attribution (humans are not to blame, it is solar flares or laser beams); question the impacts (warming is not that serious); discredit regulation efforts (green solutions are a conspiracy of the elite); or undermine the integrity of scientists (casting doubt on the IPCC). When fake news is reinforced by political leaders, mainstream media and social media platforms, they can fairly rapidly distort beliefs and reinforce contrarian behavior.   

Climate misinformation and disinformation spreads across social media in various ways. The most common is organic engagement across social networks with echo chambers reinforcing messages (owing to homophily). Recommending and ad-related algorithms are also accelerating sharing from like-minded people to wider communities. For example, in 2020, dozens of climate misinformation posts featured in Facebook ads slipped through filters and generated millions of views, especially among older individuals in rural areas of conservative states. Meanwhile, Twitter bots are also perceived as a major source of climate change misinformation and disinformation.  

Fighting back

Many efforts are underway to prevent and disrupt climate disinformation and misinformation. But like many forms of fake news, it is difficult to dislodge once absorbed by viewers. This is because it is not just specific facts, but rather core beliefs and world views that shape anchor and confirmation biases. This explains why efforts to shower users with factual information can backfire, reinforcing false beliefs rather than eliminating them. An approach focused on supplying evidence while necessary, is insufficient. Social media companies and researchers are focusing on four types of interventions including education, inoculation, technological measures and regulatory efforts.   

Major social media companies are taking steps to address these challenges, but coming under criticism for not doing enough. YouTube, for example, launched an effort in 2015 to “change the way people discuss climate change” and Google published a white paper in 2019 indicating their intention to address misinformation and disinformation. But a 2019 study of over 200 YouTube sites focused on the company’s recommendations features and concluded that it facilitated “free promotion”, “adrelated monetization” and a lack of flags. It also determined that YouTube ran ads with climate denialism alongside promotions put out by major environmental groups. YouTube was singled out as a leading source of dis/misinformation by the US House Select Committee in 2021 after it issued a letter to Google. 

Social media companies such as TikTok and Twitter are also facing a barrage of criticism for not taking sufficient action to limit climate misinformation and disinformation. That said, TikTok is enabling a lively climate discussion: the hashtag #forclimate has 533 million views. There is growing attention to the way its primary user base is applying powerful story-telling and education to build awareness, including with support from TED, Gates Ventures and other philanthropic groups. Meanwhile, Twitter has come under fire for bots and in mid 2021 the company started to undertake redirection strategies. When users follow climate-related topics they will be exposed to posts from credible environmental organizations and researchers.  

Facebook has deployed a series of strategies to tamp-out climate change misinformation and disinformation, though is also criticized for not doing enough. It launched a pilot project using a combination of educational, inoculation and technical approaches in early 2021 featuring the establishment of a climate science information center and labels on content pointing out myths about climate change. The company is tagging misinformation as well as downplaying misleading content. It nevertheless faces push-back for still not moving sufficiently forward.

SecDev approach

SecDev is working with technology platforms to develop and deploy multilayer strategies for disrupting digital harms. These include monitoring patterns of climate misinformation and disinformation across multiple languages, updating fact-checking policies, improving approaches to flagging and tagging posts with factual information, supporting “myth-busting” capabilities designed to debunk non-factual narratives, and providing curated data feeds that fuel sensors and improve AI classifiers.  

SecDev takes a three prong approach to disrupting climate misinformation and disinformation. 

• Rapid Identification - using digital intelligence and data science to supply data feeds and custom classifiers that  map, track and analyze  content  and actors that gains traction within and across communities. In most cases, a modest number of super-spreaders are responsible for a disproportionate volume of harmful content. 
• Targeted engagement - targeting dangerous content and affected communities with inoculation campaigns consisting of nudge strategies, counter-messaging and (automated) redirection with the intent of driving engagement interaction with authoritative sources; and, 
• Tailored education - applying design thinking to the development and deployment of innovative strategies ranging from gamification and edutainment to build resilience to deliberate misinformation and disinformation.

Critical to the effectiveness of all these measures is speed of response, a high degree of discretion in how the strategies are applied, persistent engagement and building communities of trust around authoritative gatekeepers. A goal must be to preserve platforms as spaces for freedom of expression while simultaneously amplifying engagement with authoritative sources.