Facebook to debunk climate change myths

Facebook announced Thursday that it will add a new section to its platform to debunk common climate change myths as it expands its nascent battle against disinformation.

The social media behemoth said in a statement that it is expanding its climate change information hub to include a section that will feature facts that rebut the common fallacies.

The new effort will be guided by climate experts from George Mason University, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the University of Cambridge.

“The spread of damaging falsehoods endangers the level of international cooperation required to prevent catastrophic global warming. Facebook is in a unique position to counter the circulation of online misinformation, and the new climate ‘mythbusting’ section is an important step toward debunking dangerous falsehoods,” Sander van der Linden of the University of Cambridge said in Facebook’s announcement. 

Facebook said its Climate Science Information Center exists to connect users “with science-based news, approachable information and actionable resources from the world’s leading climate change organizations.” 

That hub is available in France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. and is being expanded to Belgium, Brazil, Canada, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Spain, South Africa and Taiwan. The company said users in countries who do not have access to the hub will be directed to the United Nations Environment Programme when searching for issues related to the climate.

While CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last year that his company and other platforms should not be “arbiters of truth,” Facebook has begun relying on such hubs to combat the spread of disinformation on its site. Among them is a coronavirus hub that contains information about both the illness and vaccines and a voting information center that was rolled out in August before the presidential election.