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“………The pushback

On 1 July, a coalition of environmental and political groups sent a letter to Facebook’s oversight board demanding a crackdown on climate denial and to close the “giant” opinion loophole that allows climate misinformation to be posted as an opinion.

“Facebook is allowing the spread of climate misinformation to flourish, unchecked, across the globe. Instead of heeding the advice of independent scientists and approved fact-checkers from Climate Feedback, Facebook sided with fossil fuel lobbyists by allowing the CO2 Coalition to take advantage of a giant loophole for “opinion” content. The loophole has allowed climate denial to fester by labelling it “opinion,” and thus, avoiding the platform’s fact-checking processes,” they wrote.

More than 500 companies including Coca-Cola, Dunkin’ Donuts, Verizon, and this week Disney, according to WSJ, have slashed or suspended ad spends on Facebook as part of the “Stop Hate for Profit” boycott, a move by civil rights groups to try to force the social media giant to address hate speech and misinformation.

An independent audit of Facebook earlier this month reached harsh conclusions on the social media giant, reporting that it was allowing hate speech and disinformation to proliferate.

Separately, Generation Progress, the youth-centered research and advocacy group, on Thursday launched a “Get The Facts Out Campaign” website aimed at debunking myths on the climate crisis and calling out climate deniers across Congress and the Trump administration, with a focus on the interwoven issues of climate and racial justice.

“Black Americans have been fighting for clean air and water in their communities for years. Our legislators must understand the importance of addressing these inequities, not deny their existence,” the group said.

And earlier this month, two senators introduced legislation to reform Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, Reuters reported.

The legislation, titled the Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency Act, or PACT, from Democratic Senator Brian Schatz and Senate Republican John Thune, aims to provide more accountability and transparency for large tech platforms with respect to content moderation decisions………

Climate experts were sceptical of tech platforms’ ability, or desire, to enact meaningful change, and said that public action was key.

For Dr Mann that means political overhaul. “Americans must vote in a Democratic president and Congress in the next US election. Unlike Trump and Congressional Republicans, who appear beholden to both Russia and fossil fuel interests, will be willing to crack down on Zuckerberg/Facebook’s nefarious activities,” he said.

Dr Cook is working with machine-learning researchers on a system to detect and categorise climate misinformation in real-time. He acknowledged that social media platforms would have to be incentivised to use such a model, as it “would basically be taking money out of their pockets” in terms of ad revenue.

Just as important, he says, is “building public resilience against misinformation” – teaching people how to spot misleading or rhetorical techniques and logical fallacies in climate denial arguments.

“We found that when you explain techniques, that not only neutralises and inoculates people against that myth, but also against other topics like the tobacco industry and anti-vaxxer misinformation,” he said.

Dr Cook and his team have created a smart-phone app for public use and for schools.

He added: ”We need to look at technological solutions but ultimately we need to make ourselves un-hackable.”

Additional reporting from Reuters  https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-crisis-denial-facebook-global-warming-denier-social-media-a9595546.html