A polar bear in Repulse Bay, Nunavut Territory, Canada.
Paul Souders | Getty Images
Facebook announced Thursday that it will now debate common myths about climate change, leaning even further into the role of “truth arbiter” that the company once relinquished.
The social media company said it is adding a section to its climate change information center that will include facts with accurate information on misconceptions about climate change. This will include the fact that polar bear populations are declining due to global warming, as well as the fact that too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is harming the plant’s life on earth.
The company said it plans to rely on experts from George Mason University, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the University of Cambridge to identify and disprove the myths of climate change.
Facebook has introduced these information centers and relied on them as a key part of its tactics to combat the widespread problem of misinformation of its services. This is a sharp change in CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s statement last May, when he defended the unrestricted speech of the platform’s politicians and said he did not believe that “internet or Facebook platforms in general should of being true referees ”.
Past examples include a Covid-19 information center that was introduced in March and a voting information center that was introduced in August.
Facebook unveiled its climate change information center in September, shortly after the company withdrew a report with erroneous claims that Antifa members had started wildfires in Oregon. This report had gone viral on the social network.
On Thursday, Facebook also announced that it will now begin adding information tags to climate change posts that direct people to its climate change information center.
In addition, the company said it will now expand the center to users in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Spain, South Africa and Taiwan. The feature has been available in the US, UK, France and Germany.
Users in other countries will be targeted by Facebook at the UN Environment Program when they search for climate-related terms in the service, the company said.