Twitter Is Stamping Out Climate Change Denial Ads

Elon Musk might’ve just bought the platform, but there’s some other big Twitter news from the weekend.

Social giant Twitter has announced they’re banning advertisements that go against the scientific consensus on climate change.

The platform used Earth Day as an opportunity to share the news via a statement.

In it, they said: "We believe that climate denialism shouldn’t be monetised on Twitter, and that misrepresentative ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis."

Here’s what we know so far:

How will they monitor this?

Twitter says it will use "authoritative sources" to classify which ads are captured under the new policy.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is set to be a key resource for this.

Will this just apply to ads?

At the moment, it looks like ads are the main focus.

It’s not yet clear whether Twitter will also be cracking down on user-generated content and accounts that deny climate change.

Interestingly, the news came a mere few days before billionaire Elon Musk bought the platform for more than $61 billion in a deal that’s set to shake up Twitter as we know it.

Will other social platforms follow suit?

Increased pressure has been put on big tech companies to combat the climate misinformation on their platforms.

An open letter signed by more than 200 experts last year called for the CEOs of social giants to establish climate misinformation policies similar to the ones put in place for Covid-19.

And, Twitter's recent move isn’t the first of it's kind.

Earlier this month, Pinterest announced it will prohibit users from sharing climate misinformation and ban the content outright. Meanwhile, in October, Google introduced a ban on Google-supported ads appearing next to content that denied climate change.

Twitter's announcement also came hours before the European Union agreed on a deal requiring big tech companies to vet their sites more closely for hate speech and other harmful content.

So, there’s clearly a lot of movement in the misinformation space—and hopefully more to come.

Header Image: Gustavo Fring via Pexels (edited)