Explained: Twitter’s new policy on climate change denial ads, its significance

Twitter’s announcement on Friday–coinciding with Earth Day–is part of an attempt to curb climate change disinformation campaigns on its network.

The IPCC’s assessment reports are the most comprehensive and widely accepted scientific evaluations of the state of the Earth’s climate. They form the basis for government policies to tackle climate change, and provide the scientific foundation for the international climate change negotiations.

In 2019, Twitter shared plans to achieve 100 percent carbon-neutral power sourcing in their data centres by the end of 2022.

Twitter’s reasoning behind the new policy

Twitter has said that climate denialism shouldn’t be monetised on the platform and that “misrepresentative ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis”.

“We recognize that misleading information about climate change can undermine efforts to protect the planet,” it said in a blog post announcing the new policy.

Twitter’s policy on inappropriate content already specifies that ad content which includes dangerous or exploitative content, demeaning or inflammatory content, personal attacks, misrepresentative content, misleading synthetic or manipulated content, content engaged in coordinated harmful activity, distasteful content and content that showcases violence is inappropriate and, therefore, not fit to be monetised on the platform.

Google’s announcement of similar policy

In October 2021, tech giant Google had done something similar when it announced a new monetisation policy for Google advertisers, publishers and YouTube creators.

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Google’s policy prohibits ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts “well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change”.

“This includes content referring to climate change as a hoax or a scam, claims denying that long-term trends show the global climate is warming, and claims denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change,” its policy says.