Marking Earth Day 2022, Twitter has today announced that it will now be banning all ads that make claims which contradict the scientific consensus on climate change and its impacts.

As Twitter explains:

“We believe that climate denialism shouldn’t be monetized on Twitter, and that misrepresentative ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis […] We recognize that misleading information about climate change can undermine efforts to protect the planet. In the coming months, we’ll have more to share on our work to add reliable, authoritative context to the climate conversations happening on Twitter.” 

Deny Denial

Twitter says that anti-climate change ads will now be covered by its ‘Inappropriate Content Policy’, while its approach to determining what is incorrect will be informed by authoritative sources such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports. 

This is good and logical, given the depth of the evolving climate change crisis. However, as noted, this should have already been the case from the start, right? As it turns out, most social platforms don’t actually have official policies on such.

Earlier this month, Pinterest had already enacted a full ban on climate change misinformation within posts and ads. Meanwhile, back in October, Google announced that it would be prohibiting ads and monetization of YouTube videos that deny climate change. Meta includes climate change in its ‘Sensitive Topics’, restricting brands from targeting ads based on such, but it doesn’t have a specific policy in place to stop ad content that contains misinformation about climate change. Snapchat is in a similar situation, despite both it and Meta having a strong stand against the same in other approaches.

So while this development might seem a bit dated already, Twitter is actually somewhat ahead of the pack in terms of taking dedicated action and focusing on policing climate denial claims. This is good because the scientific consensus is that human activity is a major catalyst of Global Warming – we have to do what we can to avoid widespread environmental damage that would eventually make many parts of the world uninhabitable. Global Warming would also continue to cause more major catastrophes like bushfires, tsunamis, and more.

The Wrap

For some, denial is the default stance because doing such requires less personal effort. Besides, it’s often easier to point to heavier emitters, such as big industries and corporations, and dismiss your own actions as ‘negligible’. Efforts to combat climate change extend to everyone. Hopefully, other platforms follow suit, banning content with climate change misinformation within their ad policies.

Subscribe to our ‘Bottoms Up!’ Newsletter. Get the latest social media blogs about news, updates, trends, and effective social media strategies to take your business to the highest level from Tristan Ahumada and Jeff Pfitzer.

Sources

https://bit.ly/3vcaT7z