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Facebook Creates Fact-Checking Exemption for Climate Deniers (popular.info) 257

Facebook is "aiding and abetting the spread of climate misinformation," said Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist at Drexel University. "They have become the vehicle for climate misinformation, and thus should be held partially responsible for a lack of action on climate change." From a report: Brulle was reacting to Facebook's recent decision, made at the request of climate science deniers, to create a giant loophole in its fact-checking program. Last year, Facebook partnered with an organization, Science Feedback, that would bring in teams of Ph.D. climate scientists to evaluate the accuracy of viral content. It was an important expansion of the company's third-party fact-checking program. But now Facebook has reportedly decided to allow its staffers to overrule the climate scientists and make any climate disinformation ineligible for fact-checking by deeming it "opinion."

The organization that requested the change, the CO2 Coalition, is celebrating, E&E news reported on Monday. The group, which has close ties to the fossil fuel industry, says its views on climate change are increasingly ignored by the mainstream media. Now it plans to use Facebook to aggressively push climate misinformation on the public -- without having to worry about fact checks from climate scientists. A column published in the Washington Examiner in August 2019 claimed that "climate models" were a "failure" that predicted exponentially more warming of the earth than has occurred. The piece, co-authored by notorious climate science denier Pat Michaels, was quickly shared more than 2,000 times on Facebook. There was just one issue: It wasn't true. This is exactly the kind of mess that Facebook's network of independent fact-checkers is supposed to solve.

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Facebook Creates Fact-Checking Exemption for Climate Deniers

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  • Maybe because (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2020 @01:06PM (#60222802)

    Predictions of the future are not "facts".

    • Re:Maybe because (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2020 @01:09PM (#60222812) Homepage Journal

      More likely because climate change denial is worth lots of money to Facebook. It's big business, backed by big money.

      • Re:Maybe because (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot&worf,net> on Wednesday June 24, 2020 @01:56PM (#60223100)

        More likely because climate change denial is worth lots of money to Facebook. It's big business, backed by big money.

        This is true. The irony is the climate change deniers always claim the promoters are in it for the money, but there's no money studying climate change - it's happening and you only get grant money out of it.

        Climate change denial though has major backing from oil companies and oil producing companies (who are VERY rich), as well as many traditional companies. And since fewer scientists are working on it, there's only a few people chasing literally trillions of dollars. You want lucrative, you be a denier and have billions of dollars to do whatever the heck you want.

        Better than doing the whole climate change thing and only chasing half a million dollars now and again.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Kohath ( 38547 )

        More likely because climate change denial is worth lots of money to Facebook. It's big business, backed by big money.

        None of this conspiracy stuff ever seems to have any supporting facts.

        Mod it up and believe it without question though.

      • But the right wings are saying how all these scientists are getting all this big bucks to hide the truth.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      Predictions of the future are not "facts".

      The climate scientists are not predicting when there is going to be flying cars or when a COVID vaccine will arrive.

      They are using science, trends and models based upon data to predict the eventual outcome of our current trajectory. I remember when this was originally brought up in the early 1980s. And everything that was predicted has come true - and even worse.

      Here is an example from planetary science. The long held hypothesis many decades ago was that the planet Venus would be relatively cold consideri

      • But because we withdrew from the Paris nonsense we are BAD. China and Europe are increasing CO2, but they say things you agree with so they are GOOD.

      • You don't even need cloud cover to estimate Venus would be hot; it's only 67 million km from the Sun, and Earth is around 94 million miles. Venus will get twice the solar power delivered to it. We know the moon reaches 140 deg C during the day, a similar moon around Venus would reach 280 deg C. Why wouldn't one expect Venus to be much hotter, given the proximity to the Sun in the first place? Anyone who suggested it would be colder than the Earth simply was smoking bad weed...
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by malkavian ( 9512 )

      Ok. I'll hit you round the head with a baseball bat. I'm 99.9999% sure that it's going to hurt you. It's not a fact, but the sheer weight of probability given all past evidence, the prediction is on sound footing. That's what scientific consensus is. It's not a bunch of people sitting round and saying "Oh, we think this, therefore it must be this", it's when nobody can actually refute (yet) the proposal. And that's what predictions on climate are. The best that humanity can do, following trends and h

    • For example, if someone says something like "I don't believe in climate change because all the data show the Earth's average temperature is constant." then while the first part of that is their opinion, the second part of that is factually wrong. That's why we need fact-checking. People are perfectly entitled to their own opinions but they are not entitled to mislead others by lying about the facts: if money were involved that would be fraud. However, they can certainly try to explain the facts in a way tha
    • by DogDude ( 805747 )
      The climate is changing at an unprecedented rate in human history due to humans pumping too much CO2 into the atmosphere. That's a fact.
    • Science is fact-driven prediction.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Climate denial is also about things that have happened in the past, and are happening in the present.

    • by Sique ( 173459 )
      If prediction A comes from a set of assumption S, then "from S follows A" is a fact.
    • by sremick ( 91371 )

      I predict that, if you throw a sheet of paper into a fire, barring some extreme situation/intervention, it will catch fire and burn.

      So: is that "fact" or just a "prediction" that is open for "opinion"?

      Science is all about "predictions" that are based on actual facts and other, well, science. And as the facts accumulate and the foundation of facts grows, these "predictions" increase in accuracy. For example, the science of predicting earthquakes and volcanic eruptions has grown considerably and is now very u

  • Facebook Inc. = Facists Inc.

    • Interestingly, they're the LEAST fascist of all social media outlets! They're not taking sides, which is explicitly NOT fascist; taking sides and dictating what shall and shall not be allowed would be fascist.
  • by I'mjusthere ( 6916492 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2020 @01:12PM (#60222838)

    The organization that requested the change, the CO2 Coalition, is celebrating, E&E news reported on Monday. The group, which has close ties to the fossil fuel industry, says its views on climate change are increasingly ignored by the mainstream media.

    Of course, because they are lying to protect their business and profits. They have no data what-so-ever to back up their views. Therefore, their opinions should be ignored and ridiculed. Those people would rather see the World burn than see their profits decline in the short term.

  • A "environmental sociologist" that just hurts my head. How about they find a real scientist instead of these critical theory pretenders and get back to us.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      It seems to me that the impact of social networks on the public's perception of environmental issues is *squarely* in an environmental sociologist's wheelhouse.

  • Good information (Score:5, Informative)

    by AlanObject ( 3603453 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2020 @01:54PM (#60223086)

    After looking in on this thread I just reaffirmed my longstanding position of not getting involved in the usual shitshow that happens when climate science hits an Internet forum.

    If you are interested in climate science I would say a very online source you can find is realclimate.org [realclimate.org]. There are other good sources but that one is maintained by properly trained scientists. You can take what they have to write over there seriously and it is much better use of your time than trying to respond to the usual ignorance, trolls and bad actors you see on display here.

  • A what? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Archtech ( 159117 ) on Wednesday June 24, 2020 @02:26PM (#60223250)

    "Facebook is "aiding and abetting the spread of climate misinformation," said Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist at Drexel University".

    WTF is an "environmental sociologist"? Someone who studies the social interactions of the environment with itself?

    Certainly not a scientist, in the sense of someone who has a strong understanding of physics, ecology, atmospheric behaviour,solar radiation, etc.

    • I'm assuming it's someone who was primarily a sociologist, who then specialized in how the "socios" relate to their environment. So, a roundabout way of saying "ecologist". Maybe he doesn't meet the bar to be called an ecologist, in someone's opinion?

  • Should not be involved in "Fact Checking" or Gate Keeping in the first place.
    IF people want to believe dumb stuff that is their problem.

    The Truth is available if your not too lazy to consume it.

    • The big problem for Facebook is that if they're going to take a stand, it has to be the right stand. Based on Cluckerberg, it seems they've been half-hearted about the endeavor all along.
      When people point out that Facebook is an intellectual shithole, they run some ads to make it look like glee club for professional whistlers. They start this fact checking program. It's all just branding - a few months later they're carving out exceptions for what they call "special interests" in the political sphere - the

  • Work from home will kill the oil men anyway.
  • fact - something that remains true or false without reference to the observer. ( The temperature of the room is 65 degrees F)
    opinion - a statement who's truth value changes with reference to the observer. (The room is uncomfortable).

    facts commonly confused with opinions
    - God exists ( or doesn't)
    - i have a legal right to [xyz] or you don't have a legal right too [xyx].
    - [condition] highly correlates to [outcome]

    opinions often called fact:
    we must [xyz] for the sake of

  • I just saw an ad on Facebook about electrons being conscious. I doubt their fact checking on anything is going to be all that useful.

  • Climate models WERE failures and DID project exponentially more warming than we actually experienced.

    Unless he said "all" climate models, then he's right. Very little climate denial is based on made up facts. It's based on framing and projection, which are not concepts that can be "factual". They can be "fact-based", and they largely are.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I do not believe there is a single person that denies there is a climate. I bet someone's yanking your chain here.
  • On it's very face the story is fatally flawed as it presumes that a given scientific viewpoint is right, and that the other is wrong (fact checks?). That is not science, as science is by its very definition not settled. We don't consider something settled until it has become a law of physics. Science is a process, it is never a set of facts.

    You present a hypothesis, conduct experiments, gather data and present your results. If you do your job right you'll discover new science even if it isn't what you were

  • Climate Deniers

    Climate CHANGE denier. Climate denier is a stupid, lazy phrase that creates more ambiguity. One cannot deny a climate, one can deny in the face of evidence climate change. IT's just 1 word, and one word that makes or breaks how sensible the phrase is... don't be lazy.

    Whoever first thought it a good idea to "shorten" "climate change denier" in this way needs to be slapped with a fish Monty Python style. ~_~

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