Statement: Facebook Must Do More To Stop Deadly Climate Disinformation

Washington D.C. – Today, Climate Power 2020 Executive Director Lori Lodes released the following statement in response to Facebook’s perfunctory update to its climate disinformation loophole, including the creation of a new climate information center:

“Climate change is here and it’s deadly, but Facebook continues to allow climate disinformation, including dangerous conspiracy theories, to spread across its platform. Right now, the most viral posts on Facebook are spreading climate lies about the wildfires ravaging the West coast. This is yet another public relations stunt from Facebook that does nothing to stop climate deniers from spreading lies and disinformation. Instead of giving a pass to President Trump’s anti-science allies  we need Facebook to step up and take inaccurate and misleading information down before it can spread. Anything short of that is unacceptable. With climate-fueled extreme weather events upending life across vast swaths of the country, we simply cannot afford Facebook’s halfhearted approach to this deadly crisis.”

Today’s announcement from Facebook falls especially flat as right-wing conspiracy theories on the wildfires are running rampant on the social network platform with two of the three most viral posts from the past 24 hours focused on misinformation on climate change and falsey connecting the wildfires to looters and viliganents.