As inhabitants of the planet Earth, we desperately need to address climate change in order to ensure the health of our global ecosystem. The first step just might be dealing with the toxic waste getting dumped into our social media feeds. According to a new study published by the Royal Swedish Academy of Science in the journal Ambio, disinformation and trolling across social platforms is making the effort to educate the public about the very real threats of climate change even more difficult.
The paper, which will be presented as part of the first-ever Nobel Prize Summitnext month, found that the same conditions of social media that have poisoned discourse and sowed doubt about democratic institutions and elections has similarly eroded trust in science. “Isolationism stimulated by social media-boosted discontent may hamper global cooperation needed to curb global warming, biodiversity loss, wealth concentration, and other trends,” the researchers wrote. They warn that “targeted attacks” on social media, including trolling campaigns, bot farms, and algorithm-generated content can all be used to alter and influence human behavior.
This type of disinformation is dangerous because of how quickly it can spread, entirely unchecked and unregulated. Systems designed to catch misinformation, like the types of fact-checks applied by platforms like Facebook and Twitter, often don’t act fast enough to stop the spread of misinformation. Research has found that intervening early is essential to stopping bad information before it can gain traction. Continue reading.