Twitter Moves to Ban Ads Refuting Science on Climate Change
Twitter has announced that advertisers that ignore the scientific consensus on climate change will no longer be allowed to do their work on its platform. There was no indication that the change would impact what people tweeted. During last year's UN climate conference, the firm had a special climate subject and offered climate "pre-bunks."
Twitter has introduced a new policy similar to one at Google on cracking down on advertisers on its platform who contradict the scientific consensus on climate change.
Twitter, in a statement, said, "Ads should not detract from important conversations about the climate crisis."
There was no evidence that the move would impact what users write on social networking sites, which, like Facebook, have been targeted by groups aiming to spread false climate change claims.
The statement came on Earth Day, just a few hours before the European Union agreed to make big tech companies filter their sites thoroughly for hate speech, misinformation, and other harmful activities.
Twitter said it would share additional details in the coming months about how it plans to provide "reliable, authoritative context" to the climate dialogues its users have, including from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The studies of a United Nations-backed science group on the causes and impacts of climate change serve as the foundation for international climate change negotiations.
The company already has a section on its website about climate change, and it provided "pre-bunks" to dispel myths about climate change at last year's United Nations summit on climate change.
