The decision by Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to end its fact-checking program and otherwise reduce content moderation raises the question of what content on those social media platforms will look like going forward.
One worrisome possibility is that the change could open the floodgates to more climate misinformation on Meta’s apps, including misleading or out-of-context claims during disasters.
In 2020, Meta rolled out its Climate Science Information Center on Facebook to respond to climate misinformation. Currently, third-party fact-checkers working with Meta flag false and misleading posts. Meta then decides whether to attach a warning label to them and reduce how much the company’s algorithms promote them.
Meta’s policies have fact-checkers prioritizing “viral false information,” hoaxes and “provably false claims that are timely, trending and consequential.” Meta explicitly states that this excludes opinion content that does not include false claims.
The company will end its agreements with U.S.-based third-party fact-checking organizations in March 2025. The planned changes slated to roll out to U.S. users won’t affect fact-checking content viewed by users outside the U.S.. The tech industry faces greater regulations on combating misinformation in other regions, such as the European Union.
Fact-checking curbs climate misinformation
I study climate change communication. Fact-checks can help correct political misinformation, including on climate change. People’s beliefs, ideology and prior knowledge affect how well fact-checks work. Finding messages that align with the target audience’s values, along with using trusted messengers – like climate-friendly conservative groups when speaking to political conservatives – can help. So, too, does appealing to shared social norms, like limiting harm to future generations.
Heat waves, flooding and fire conditions are becoming more common and catastrophic as the world warms. Extreme weather events often lead to a spike in social media attention to climate change. Social media posting peaks during a crisis but drops off quickly.
Low-quality fake images created using generative artificial intelligence software, so-called AI slop, is adding to confusion online during crises. For example, in the aftermath of back-to-back hurricanes Helene and Milton last fall, fake AI-generated images of a young girl, shivering and holding a puppy in a boat, went viral on the social media platform X. The spread of rumors and misinformation hindered the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster response.
What distinguishes misinformation from disinformation is the intent of the person or group doing the sharing. Misinformation is false or misleading content shared without active intention to mislead. On the other hand, disinformation is misleading or false information shared with the intent to deceive.
Disinformation campaigns are already happening. In the wake of the 2023 Hawaii wildfires, researchers at Recorded Future, Microsoft, NewsGuard and the University of Maryland independently documented an organized propaganda campaign by Chinese operatives targeting U.S. social media users.
To be sure, the spread of misleading information and rumors on social media is not a new problem. However, not all content moderation approaches have the same effect, and platforms are changing how they address misinformation. For example, X replaced its rumor controls that had helped debunk false claims during fast-moving disasters with user-generated labels, Community Notes.
False claims can go viral rapidly
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg specifically cited X’s Community Notes as an inspiration for his company’s planned changes in content moderation. The trouble is false claims go viral quickly. Recent research has found that the response time of crowd-sourced Community Notes is too slow to stop the diffusion of viral misinformation early in its online life cycle – the point when posts are most widely viewed.
In the case of climate change, misinformation is “sticky.” It is especially hard to dislodge falsehoods from people’s minds once they encounter them repeatedly. Furthermore, climate misinformation undermines public acceptance of established science. Just sharing more facts does not work to combat the spread of false claims about climate change.
Explaining that scientists agree that climate change is happening and is caused by humans burning greenhouse gases can prepare people to avoid misinformation. Psychology research indicates that this “inoculation” approach works to reduce the influence of false claims to the contrary.
That’s why warning people against climate misinformation before it goes viral is crucial for curbing its spread. Doing so is likely to get harder on Meta’s apps.
Social media users as sole debunkers
With the coming changes, you will be the fact-checker on Facebook and other Meta apps. The most effective way to pre-bunk against climate misinformation is to lead with accurate information, then warn briefly about the myth – but only state it once. Follow this with explaining why it is inaccurate and repeat the truth.
During climate change-fueled disasters, people are desperate for accurate and reliable information to make lifesaving decisions. Doing so is already challenging enough, like when the Los Angeles County’s emergency management office erroneously sent an evacuation alert to 10 million people on Jan. 9, 2025.
Crowd-sourced debunking is no match for organized disinformation campaigns in the midst of information vacuums during a crisis. The conditions for the rapid and unchecked spread of misleading, and outright false, content could get worse with Meta’s content moderation policy and algorithmic changes.
The U.S. public by and large wants the industry to moderate false information online. Instead, it seems that big tech companies are leaving fact-checking to their users.
Jill Hopke is Associate Professor of Journalism, DePaul University.
The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.
- External Link
- https://theconversation.com/climate-misinformation-is-rife-on-social-media-and-poised-to-get-worse-247156
44 Comments
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Moriah
Misinformation like when Al Gore said in 2004 that by 2020, all coastal cities will be flooded.
virusrex
Sure, anybody that contradicts the scientists and experts in the field can be guilty of spreading misinformation, some for good intentions (like environmental activism) others for terribly bad ones (keep profits of fossil fuel companies untouched).
The worst kind are those spreading disinformation, people that know they are spreading lies (since they have been demonstrated as such repeatedly) but still they continue since they benefit personally from misleading people into believing falsehoods.
Hervé L'Eisa
The actual misinformation /DISINFORMATION is coming from the climate alarmist propaganda machine, including THIS article and source.
Bad Haircut
And this website in general. Hardly a day goes by that an alarmist piece doesn't appear here, and never anything challenging the narrative.
virusrex
Include every institute of science in the world and bring even one that disagree with the article.
Is there none? that is because the article is correct, those refusing to accept reality are the ones in the wrong.
You have never been able to provide any kind of reference to contradict what is written in these articles, but still expect people to believe you are right and all the scientists of the world are wrong. That is not a rational (nor believable) thing.
iknowall
There are many. Do your homework.
fallaffel
An article isn't alarmist if it's factual. What in this piece is false information?
"Challenging the narrative" is easy if you can present evidence that the narrative is false. You'd get a Nobel prize if you could prove greenhouse gases don't cause climate change.
Some people are more convinced by loud politicians or social media personas than science though. It means we need to evolve a bit more I guess.
virusrex
Did, there are none. Since you left the burden of proof on me that means the claim is therefore completely debunked.
Bad Haircut
The Climategate emails nearly 20 years ago from the University of East Anglia proved there is a conspiracy to hide data that doesn't conform to the catastrophic AGW narrative, but the mainstream media completely ignored the scandal. And nothing has changed; in fact, the screeching narrative from your side has got worse, mainly devolving into smears and slurs of "denialist" and "conspiracy theorist" against anyone who calls out the alarmist BS.
virusrex
No they don't that is just another lie from antiscience propaganda groups that has been repeatedly debunked. Exaggerations and misrepresentations that do absolutely nothing against the mountains of evidence that support the consensus pon climate change.
When you claim a conspiracy that includes every single institution of science of the planet you lose all credibility, it is realistically impossible for this scenario to be true, and if it is not true then the claim that climate change is not real falls completely.
When people claim that a conspiracy (including the scientific community of the whole world) is behind the consensus that climate change is real, then they are the ones that put the label on themselves.
Raw Beer
Yes, and the alarmists are getting increasingly aggressive, especially recently as they are starting to lose their grip on the mainstream narrative.
virusrex
The scientists and experts are if anything moderate on the warnings and predictions, that is the opposite of being alarmists. And no, the scientific literature have not shifted at all, anthropomorphic climate change and its disastrous consequences is stronger than ever now that these consequences are beginning to be experienced.
Bad Haircut
Almost everyone recognises that the climate changes - always has, always will. But it's the intellectually honest ones who question the extent to which CO2 and humans actually influence it. People whose incomes depend on propagating the belief that humans are causing catastrophic global warming and that drastic economic and social measures are needed to put a stop to it are not likely to listen to people who disagree with them. That's just human nature.
GuruMick
Smoking is actually good for you apparently
Acid rain does not exist.
The Yeti lives in my condo.
Raw Beer
I see, so you're acknowledging that the media exaggerate; their reports are misrepresentations of the claims made by scientists and experts.
And regarding the scientific literature, Climategate demonstrates perfectly why it is so one sided.
virusrex
Irrelevant, that is like arguing 40oC is not a fever because people always have temperature in their bodies.
Nobody does, at least not with actual scientific arguments, proved the moment you could not bring even one institution in the whole planet that defends the claim that this relationship has not been proved. Once again, pretending everybody is in a conspiracy that you can't prove is not an argument, is an excuse, the same one that flat earthers and creationists use to "defend" their antiscientific claims.
No such thing happens, the fossil fuel industry has enough resources to make every scientists and researcher able to prove climate change is independent of human activity extremely rich. Nobody's income depends on a fixed explanation. The "problem" (for antiscientific propaganda groups) is that this relationship is so strongly proved, and the alternative explanations so easily disproved, that post publication peer review can easily debunk bad reports trying to make false claims.
On the opposite, the media also repeat the conservative warnings of the scientists, the data and projections could justify much more dire warnings but the scientists opt to err on the side of moderation and the articles just repeat these too moderated predictions. Nowhere in the text you quote says anybody misrepresents the scientists.
No it does not, first because it is well accepted the scandal was completely out of proportions by bad actors lying and exaggerating normal disagreement. And second because would completely fail to explain why every single institution of science, in every country of the planet would keep supporting the consensus. You are claiming all those scientists are in a conspiracy, which again is impossible to believe to anybody that has even a tiny amount of common sense.
Zaphod
Ah, here we go again. Another article clamouring for more censorship by some version of a "ministry of truth" that decides what the unwashed masses are allowed to see and what not. It is truly disheartening to see how many so-called progressives do not realize that free flow of information is the basis of a modern society.
"There was no time in history where the people censoring free speech were the good guys."
(Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)
Zaphod
virusrex
What is that even supposed to mean? Please quote one single scientist that that claims the climate has never changed and should never change.
The dispute is about the anthropogenic component of climate change, and there are plenty of scientists who disagree with the simplistic political narrative. No "consensus".
fallaffel
Lol, maybe in the 1970s-1980s there was a dispute.
If you don't understand people cause climate change at this point, you're not a climate skeptic, but something else...
Zaphod
fallaffel
So in your mind there was no climate change before people existed? Tell us more!
virusrex
When you are unable to refute anything that the article is explaining there is no merit on calling it censorship when your disagreement is not given the same value. Prove your claims with the same amount and quality of evidence as the scientists whose opinions are being reflected in the article before expecting those claims to be taken seriously. Flow of debunked, baseless claims is not something positive nor worth including in a discussion.
What has this to do with the claims that the scientists have made that clearly and unequivocally blame the current climate change crisis on human activity? "Climate change" is not used in this context as any kind of change but obviously to the current crisis.
There is no dispute, easily proved the moment you could not bring even one out of literally thousands of institutions of science in the world that say this is not settled. There are plenty of "doctors" that disagree (also without evidence) that microbes exists, or that "hand healing" is worthless, unfortunately in every profession there will be people that are unworthy of being included because of lack of capacity or moral compass and that defend false claims because of ignorance, egocentrism or personal profit. "Professionals" that claim something without evidence are just bad at the work and don't deserve the title.
lincolnman
Everything you need to know about who the kooks and charlatans are WRT climate change can be summed up in one statement;
"Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested in a Facebook post that wildfires in California were not natural. Forests don’t just catch fire, you know. Rather, the blazes had been started by PG&E, in conjunction with the Rothschilds, using a space laser, in order to clear room for a high-speed rail project."
You really can't get much more kooky than that, though I'm sure our far-right friends will try...
virusrex
All of them, in every country of the world? without even one of them going against the consensus? sorry but that is realistically impossible.
Specially because the argument that already debunked this false premise. The fossil fuel industry could fund any institution with a thousand times more resources than what countries give, this would make it much more likely that scientists contradict the climate change consensus if the priority was the money.
But it is not, so this imaginary situation does not happen, it is just again the same excuse of creationists and flat earthers "The planet is flat, but every university in the world only says what they are paid to say!!"
There is no obsession, you present no evidence, nobody in the scientific community supports what you want to believe, making this obvious is terribly simple. You expect to convince people without any argument, evidence or support from the experts, that would be a much more clear example of an obsession.
Also, you fail to understand the meaning of "Scientific authority", it does not mean people that have authority to force you to do something as you apparently think. It means people that have demonstrated authority over the topic that is being discussed, a capacity to fully understand it, to deal with the concepts and processes involved in their study.
Bret T
Jill Hopke is Associate Professor of Journalism, DePaul University.
This person is a journalist from a extremely liberal university. Yet she writes this article as if she is very knowledgeable on everything from climate science to human behavioral topics like susceptibility to false information, and internet fact checking effectiveness, and many other "facts". No sources for any of her claims.
Nothing to see here. Moving on.
ClippetyClop
What caused those changes? Pick one and tell us what caused it.
'You'll be tempted to blame, 'Mother Nature', but if you do that you'll sound like an ignorant druid, so do it properly.
dobre vam zajebava
Jill Hopke
This article is exact example of climate misinformation.
"great" job.
virusrex
Can you bring any source that refutes anything the article is describing? because if not that means the writer is doing her job properly.
There is no point in claiming the article is mistaken or biased without proving it first.
This article is exact example of climate misinformation.
What claims of the article can you demonstrate false with cientific references? none? that means it is not misinformation, claiming that would be.
virusrex
Insisting on personal attacks is what makes no sense, you explicitly agreed not to do it when you accepted the rules to comment, yet you do it every single day and then complain when these transgressions are corrected. It makes no sense.
As little sense as thinking scientific matters can be decided by politicians instead of by evidence.
GuruMick
Some good books by University Professors who examined the various "anti " science commentators , from smoking to acid rain to climate change.
Its funny, the same names keep appearing as the denialists.
One of the "no harm in smoking " people now says "no harm in climate change "
You,d think they would hide their identity a little better.
"Dark Money " is one source book I have read .
fallaffel
No... No one believes this. It's the old straw man argument you're using, I guess.
Mie Fox
Everybody chooses the scientists they find more credible, since most of us are not scientists ourselves. I am grateful to the person who directed me to this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55n-Zdv_Bwc
albaleo
That may be true, but a little worrying. Would it not be better if they chose the data they find more credible?
CaptDingleheimer
Yet whenever anything happens in the weather, climate change is blamed and we are expected to take it at face value.
Prior to European arrival and industrialization, roughly 10% of the land in California, and similarly, about 10% of the land that is now L.A. Country would burn in a GIVEN YEAR. Yet when under 2% of it burns, it's all because of "climate change".
We are told that tornados are getting worse because of climate change, because they are destroying more houses. Yet anyone who has been to the Midwest over the years knows that farmers are always selling agricultural land to developers. That 2,000-acre cornfield that was here 5 years ago is now a neighborhood of 250 nearly identical houses, and that's happening all over the place. Nobody said much when the tornado ripped through a cornfield, but now there are more houses in its way. Of course more houses are being destroyed. The same is true with the fires and the proliferation of house-building in the hills of California.
ClippetyClop
It isn't, and you aren't.
If you don't think climate change is happening, then why is the climate changing?
What is causing it?
I've asked this question a few times but the people who question climate change science either disappear or bang on about woke globalist media agenda JT moderator narratives and stuff, and not the climate.
Can you do better than them?
iknowall
Now that censorship is on the way out on Facebook and Instagram, there will be less climate misinformation on social media.
ClippetyClop
And yet facebook or instagram won't stop the climate changing, it will only help you pretend that it's not.
Because you aren't able to cope with a problem that you aren't able to comprehend in the first place. It's not even a difficult problem to comprehend, for most reasoning humans.
Jimizo
Yep. They are really dull and predictable.
Some people are suited to be spoon fed.
50/1 on that being the case.
CaptDingleheimer
ClippetyClop
Did I say that I don't think climate change is happening? Where did I say that?
Clearly it is happening.
What I'm saying is that when everything is contributed to climate change, it's disingenuous and discredits those same people when they talk about legitimate evidence of climate change.
But this is the problem with the conversation around the whole thing: "You're either with us or against us", there is no discussion allowed. Either you believe every puff of wind and drop of rain is climate change, or you're a right wing climate denier.
virusrex
Completely false, the reports and studies are open for anybody to evaluate, the evidence works precisely because is under scrutiny of the global scientific community.
You don't agree with the evidence? you are free to use scientific arguments to criticize it.
No, not all but it is a contributing factor, what evidence do you have the season was not unusually high and the wind unusually strong because of it?
No, because they are slower moving, with faster winds in unusual routes and evidence proves this is because of climate change, what evidence do you have against what you are being actually told by the scientists?
The opposite, there is no less censorship, there is less fact checking that is a completely different thing, when misinformation is actively promoted there is no way it will become less.
Not everything, only those things where the influence can be proved, and if you disagree the reports are there for you to contradict with scientific arguments. The discussion is completely allowed, what is not allowed is for people to pretend debunked explanations and falsehoods to be included in that discussion, because that would make no sense.
bass4funk
Good
ClippetyClop
Climate change is affecting the entire planet, so I'm afraid every puff of wind or drop of rain will also be affected by it.
But if I offended you then I apologise.
Wick's pencil
No, "fact checking" is censorship.
The "fact checkers" are handed "facts" from their funders. Their job is to ensure people never see any information that deviates from that dogma.
Censorship has never been a good thing.
iknowall
A censorship-free social media world.
The Trump-effect continues.
virusrex
No, it is not, to say something can be proved as a lie is not censoring it, it providing a useful context.
Which is irrelevant when you can't say anything against the fact that is being reported. There is no dogma, just evidence that you don't want to accept.
Like twitter? it is now much more heavily censored than ever before.