Major social media platforms are enabling and profiting from misinformation around extreme weather events, endangering lives. “The rapid spread of climate conspiracies online isn’t accidental. It’s baked into a business model that profits from outrage and division,”

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1. Major social media platforms are enabling and profiting from misinformation around extreme weather events, endangering lives and impeding emergency response efforts, a research group said Tuesday.

   The report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) — which analyzed 100 viral posts on each of three leading platforms during recent natural disasters including deadly Texas floods — highlights how their algorithms amplify conspiracy theorists while sidelining life-saving information.

   “The influence of high-profile conspiracy theorists during climate disasters is drowning out emergency response efforts,” the report said, adding that the trend was “putting lives at risk.”

   Nearly all of the analyzed posts on Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram lacked fact-checks or Community Notes, a crowd-sourced verification system increasingly being adopted as an alternative to professional fact-checkers, the report said.

2. Thanks for sharing important insights! Social media algorithms are a big part of the problem. Norwegian government launched a strategy on fighting misinformation this spring, which is silent on sustainability crises. I wrote about it in a Norwegian newspaperhttps://www.dagsavisen.no/debatt/desinformasjon-i-klimakrisens-tid/9867056.

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