Anti-klimaticka agenda opet na vzestupu

ISD’s monitoring of climate mis- and disinformation around COP27 found that while the playbook has largely pivoted to ‘delayist’ tactics, outright denialism has far from disappeared. Since July 2022, we have also seen increased use of the hashtag #ClimateScam on Twitter and other explicit references to climate denial, amplified by prominent accounts including those verified with a ‘blue tick’ checkmark. In light of these trends, and building on an investigation published by EU DisinfoLab in February 2023, we sought to trace the reach of 32 fringe climate-denying and climate-sceptic websites identified by EU DisinfoLab’s research. These websites originate from the US and nine European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom), producing content in respective national languages. Climate-sceptic actors have increasingly mentioned them in tweets since early 2022, suggesting increased attempts to push climate-denying talking points to the general public.
In order to determine the reach of the websites, we used the analytics tool Brandwatch to capture all mentions of the websites’ domains on Twitter between 1 January 2022 and 1 March 2023 [1]. Our aim was to understand the extent to which these websites were being shared on the platform, which actors gave them the highest visibility, and under what framework/narratives were they being promoted.

Mainstreaming climate scepticism: Analysing the reach of fringe websites on Twitter - ISD
https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/mainstreaming-climate-scepticism-analysing-the-reach-of-fringe-websites-on-twitter/

TUHO: Twitter wasn’t designed to provide accurate info. Twitter is designed to maximize people’s attention and engagement. And how do you do that? You surface sensational, emotionally evocative content rather than surface deliberative rational information,” she said. “That’s not sexy, it’s all about the architecture.”

Earlier this week, a search for “climate” on Twitter resulted in “#ClimateScam” as the top term on the platform. Tweets using that hashtag were a miasma of climate disinformation, cherry-picked statistics and conspiracy theories. On another day, the top result was “climate lockdown,” a reference to the Great Reset conspiracy theory that claims a group of global elites is planning to shut down economic activity around the world to cut carbon emissions (Climatewire, Dec. 6).