Climate Action Against Disinformation found that, in every month since COP27, the hashtag #climatescam generated more retweets and likes than #climatecrisis and #climateemergency on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Researchers attributed much of #climatescam’s traction to a small group of influential accounts, which they said tended to be far more vocal about climate denial on X than on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
Some of the sites pushing climate disinformation made money from ads — a revenue stream that researchers said was enabled by more than 150 advertising exchanges owned by some of the largest tech companies.
The marketplaces, which largely use automated auctions to buy and sell online ads, placed ads on at least 15 websites known for hosting climate denial content, according to the report.
Doing so flouted policies set up by many of the exchanges to block climate denial content and other disinformation from being monetized.
Persons:
Bean, ”
Organizations:
Twitter, Facebook
Locations:
Russia, China, United States