Member-only story
Dismantling Climate Change Disinformation
Google has begun to take a much-needed step in banning the promotion of content or advertisements peddling climate disinformation, consequentially denying monetization or influence of creators that engage in such campaigns. Using automated tools and human review, Google and YouTube will be enforcing a filter-like process that would detect and pull out content that demeans climate change and its effects as “hoaxes” or “scams”, or dispute expert findings on climate change with baseless claims, ultimately thwarting creators and platforms that profit off from these misleading contents.
As this comes about 3 weeks from the upcoming COP26 summit — where world leaders would discuss the future of climate change action, the concept of keeping tabs on disinformation and misinformation campaigns should have been a done deal a long time ago. This will, however, cause a chain reaction — from the public furor of stifling the right to free speech to the information oversight’s potential for exploitation by people with power and influence. So, it cannot be boiled down to the simple, “Why can’t we just block disinformation content altogether?”. While the limitless world of the internet concocts and festers a chimera of factual and fictitious content, those who regulate it via their respective platforms are walking a thin line between content accessibility and restriction.
