Microblogging platform, Twitter states that it will no longer allow advertising climate change propaganda ads on its site that denies the scientific concurrence on climate change, echoing a policy already in place at Google. “Ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis,” the company said in a statement outlining its new policy Friday.
EU is Instructing Tech Giants to Vet Their Sites More Closely
Moreover, there was no sign that the change would affect what users post on the social media site, which along with Facebook has been targeted by groups seeking to promote misleading claims about climate change via climate change propaganda ads. The announcement coinciding with Earth Day came hours before the European Union agreed upon a deal demanding big tech companies to vet their sites more closely for hate speech, disinformation, and other harmful content.
Twitter stated it would deliver more details in the coming months on how it intends to deliver “reliable, authoritative context to the climate conversations” its users engage in, including from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The U.N.-backed science panel’s statements on the causes and effects of climate change deliver the basis for international negotiations to constrain climate change.
Google and Meta Are Also Also Working to Curb Climate Change Propaganda Ads
The company already has a reserved climate topic on its site and offered what is defined as “pre-bunks” during last year’s U.N. climate conference to counter misinformation and climate change propaganda ads surrounding climate change. Google similarly declared a move to ban advertisements that oppose scientists’ understanding of the existence and causes of climate change. Facebook, which was renamed Meta, has also rolled out a Climate Science Center to give users a go-to place to find accurate information on climate change and avoid climate change propaganda ads.
Read more: Twitter Starts Testing a ‘CC’ Button to Turn Video Captions On or Off
