Twitter Bans Climate Change 'Propaganda' Ads That Deny 'Scientific Consensus'
The social network Twitter has taken it upon itself to save Mother Earth from the fiendish designs of climate change deniers by banning any ads that contradict the scientific consensus that the earth is warming up (or is it cooling down this week?).
If you can imagine, it gets worse.
Twitter is going to base its decisions on what exactly constitutes “scientific consensus” by referring to the bible of global warming — reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Do they really want to do that? After all, an IPCC report said that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 despite the fact that some of them appear to be growing. And for 11 years, according to the IPCC, global temperatures didn’t rise at all.
“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,” the company said in a blog post. “We recognize that misleading information about climate change can undermine efforts to protect the planet.”
If “climate denialism” shouldn’t be monetized, why allow climate hysteria to make money? These NGOs and anti-capitalist groups have been exaggerating the risks of global warming for 50 years. Why do they get to tell lies and frighten people to raise money while the deniers are not?
In the marketplace of ideas, both sides should be allowed to spout their nonsense and let the people decide what to believe.
Twitter’s Friday announcement — coinciding with Earth Day — is part of a larger trend by social media companies to address criticism from activists that they are doing too little to combat climate change disinformation campaigns from spreading rapidly on their massive networks on their sprawling networks. In recent years, tech companies have been introducing new labels and information hubs to elevate accurate information about the environment while taking steps to limit the spread of falsehoods.
So Twitter is going to allow “activists” to have a say in what is “misinformation” and what is a “difference of opinion”? In essence, that’s what we’re discussing.
Real science doesn’t care if a “consensus” has been reached on an issue. Until the 1970s, the “consensus view” was the “steady-state theory” that explained the origin of the universe. Now, an overwhelming number of scientists and cosmologists subscribe to the misnamed “Big Bang” theory to explain the beginnings of time.
Which “consensus” should we use?
It also coincides with Elon Musk’s $43 billion hostile takeover bid for Twitter, which he launched last week amid weeks of talk about the importance of free speech. At a TED conference last week Musk called the company the public town square.
“I think we would want to err on the, if in doubt, let the speech, let it exist. But if it’s a gray area, I would say let the tweet exist,” he said.
That free speech stance may contradict Twitter’s push toward more content moderation, including in the area of climate change.
Look at the way news and information about the coronavirus emerged. Should Twitter now reinstate all those people they banned who questioned the science, the school closings, and the other “follow the science” postulates that were later shown to be wrong?
Elon Musk believes that Twitter and other social networks are akin to the early American town squares where citizens would gather on the quads and greens to meet, gossip, and talk about crops and politics. It’s a vital exercise in democracy, and the social media censors should stop trying to decide who’s telling tall tales and who isn’t.
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