Owners of social media platforms profit from tidal waves of hate and disinformation. Boy, do they profit.
According to Forbes, Facebook’s Zuckerberg is worth C$230 billion, while co-founders Saverin and Moskovitz share C$50 billion. Twitter’s Elon Musk is said to be worth C$275 billion, while Google founders Page and Brin hold $320 billion between them. That’s almost a trillion dollars in the hands of six greedy men.
The six may hold unimaginable wealth but Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) reports their companies permit statements that endanger everyone on earth. Google, Twitter, and Facebook monetize climate denial content.
Recent research by CCDH is titled: The New Climate Denial — How social media platforms and content producers profit by spreading new forms of climate denial:
2023 was the hottest year on record. Once unprecedented wildfires, floods, unbearable heat, and droughts are becoming normal to billions of people worldwide. It is difficult to deny the simple fact that our climate is changing in predictable and yet, still, even now, shocking ways…
And yet, the sensible majority of us who seek to avert climate catastrophe find ourselves continually having to deal with a tidal wave of disinformation designed to delay action. These lies, welcomed, enabled, and often funded by oil and gas tycoons who benefit financially, are cynically used by political leaders to explain why they remain stubbornly incapable of taking urgent corrective action.
In this Enlightenment battle of truth and science versus lies and greed, those on the side of science appear to have succeeded in persuading the public that anthropogenic climate change is a reality, which is why those who seek to undermine climate science have shifted strategy.
According to CCDH, those who oppose climate action have shifted from one point to another as reality dulled their lies:
- Global warming is not happening.
- Anthropogenic greenhouse gasses are not causing global warming.
- The impacts of global warming are beneficial or harmless.
- Climate solutions won’t work.
- Climate science is unreliable.
CCDH researchers provide several examples of misinformation presented by familiar names.
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Categories: Climate Change
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Hate has always been profitable and the social media barons know this well. Our politicians are far too weak to take on the barons and they will continue to allow hate, fake news and worse to spread on their platforms. With their algorithms, they can mold public discourse and public fears. Sadly, too late to stop them, as we we enter this dystopian age of ignorance.
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