Twitter seems to be increasingly becoming a haven for extremists and climate deniers. According to a study by researchers from the University of London, the number of tweets questioning or denying climate change posted by this social network in 2022 has increased significantly compared to previous years.
This situation, which emerged after controversial businessman Elon Musk took control of the network, is accompanied by the return of controversial people banned by previous owners to Twitter.
In 2022, 850,000 tweets or retweets were published denying climate change; this represents a sharp increase compared to 650,000 registered in 2021 or 220,000 recorded in 2020.according to that research.
Much of this increase in climate misinformation actually comes from a single source. hashtag: #climatescam translated as climate scam. It hashtagactually, It appears as the top result when searching Twitter for #climatepresents an overwhelming amount of misinformation.
To be redirected to #climatescam, simply type the word ‘climate’ into the Twitter search engine, even if there are versions of it. hashtag In Spanish (#estafaclimatica or #estafacalentologa) and other denialist tendencies (#plandemic).
The trend cannot be stopped. 23,832 tweets were published last November. hashtag #climatescam is a figure that is directly doubled from the previous month and Multiply the 2021 monthly average by 17.
25% of climate tweets are generated by bots
But also, according to The Guardian, A quarter of all daily tweets about climate issues are generated by botsi.e. computer programs that artificially produce repetitive and repetitive messages about a topic by pretending to be real users. This is evidenced by a study by Brown University, whose authors point out that this fact “strengthens climate denial” through this network.
These facts show that Climate denial has been spreading fast on Twitter since Elon Musk bought the social network. at the end of last October.
musk also allowed characters that were already discarded to return to the network for provocative messages containing false information. They are also people who have a large number of followers and therefore have a great capacity to influence public opinion.
According to The Guardian, this many scientists, broadcasters and climate experts are considering leaving Twitterbecause the platform in question does not soften the harmful content of its subscribers and becomes the shelter and speaker of unscientific doctrines.
Reference articles: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/21/climate-tweets-twitter-bots-analysis
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/02/climate-change-denialism-flooding-twitter-scientists
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