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Climate denial ads get 8 million views on Facebook despite firms commitment to tackle misinformation, study finds

Groups with opaque finances are continuing to sow confusion and mistrust on Facebook about the climate crisis - despite promises by the social media giant to tackle misinformation, a new report has found.

In the first six months of this year, 51 climate science disinformation ads on Facebook received 8 million views in the US, according to analysis published on Thursday by non-profit think tank InfluenceMap.

The report found that of the 51 ads, only one had been actively removed by Facebook while the rest were allowed to run for their scheduled lifetime.

Two ads, both from conservative nonprofit PragerU, went up on 23 January and ran to 1 October - two weeks after Facebook announced its Climate Science Information Center, a dedicated space for facts and figures from reputable source as part of the network stepping up the fight against climate change .

Facebook outsources fact-checking to dozens of independent third-party groups, including Climate Feedback, who rate climate-related content.

In a statement, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said the new report reinforces and reveals how Facebook lets climate deniers spread dangerous junk to millions of people.

During the primaries she called for breaking up the tech giants and along with Democratic colleagues, has signaled she would overhaul antitrust legislation.

The new study found that the ads were mostly seen by men over the age of 55 in rural parts of the US, particularly in Texas and Wyoming.

They were distributed to more men than women, across all age groups, the researchers discovered by using publicly-available data on Facebooks Ad Library .

One suggested that environmental issues were getting better with a focus on clean air and water but omitting mention of the climate crisis.

Original article
Author: The Independent

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