Climate misinformation on Twitter has been more rife in 2022 than any previous year, according to recent reports. But why?
People talking garbage on Twitter isnβt a new phenomenon, but weβve lowered the bar in 2022.
An exasperating rise in climate denier content ignited in 2022 on Twitter, making the year far and away the worst for this type of misinformation since the platformβs inception.
Analysis conducted by The Times revealed that 850,000 tweets and retweets have expressed this dubious rhetoric, compared to 650,000 in 2021, and 220,000 in 2020. Basically, what was already something of a dumpster fire is now a raging inferno.
Elon Muskβs Twitter takeover in October β which was akin to that of a bull in a china shop β instantly diminished the platformβs workforce to unrecognisable levels, and concerns about misinformation and hate speech proliferating have yet to be sated.
This recent loosening of regulations directly correlates with the rise in a few troublesome hashtags. Chief among them is #climatescam, which makes up around 40% of tweets containing climate sceptic language in 2022. Prior to this year, the hashtag represented just two percent.
https://twitter.com/MatthewPettipa1/status/1597397552646983680?s=20&t=bfG1ZYT96kymUFpiM8AeAQ
If you head to Twitter right now and begin searching β#climate,β β#climatescamβ appears as a top result complete with a buffet of false information.