Meta doubles-down on promoting credible, trusted, and vetted resources about climate change
As sources of information have multiplied, accessing information that is credible and factual is more important than ever. This is especially true when it comes to the climate crisis. Carefully vetted sources and reliable data are essential to understanding the changes that our planet is currently undergoing.
At the onset of the pandemic, Meta built a COVID-19 information center that comprised up-to-the-minute stories and data from reliable and reputable sources, public health authorities and independent fact-checkers from around the world. This endeavor was such a success that the team at Meta decided to apply the same strategy to an information hub about climate change. To bolster these efforts and make users aware of the new information center, the company has rolled out labels on climate-related posts in more than a dozen countries. These post labels direct users to the Climate Science Center as well as to a survey that Meta is running in partnership with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) to investigate the public’s understanding of climate change, as well as the attitudes and behaviors among Facebook users on the subject.
Data for Good
Meta launched the Data for Good initiative in 2017, with a stated goal of empowering its partners with data to “help make progress on major social issues.”
This effort began with high-resolution population density maps that have been used to understand the distribution of power worldwide and was followed by a 2020 series of maps on the prevalence of climate conversations on the platform. In 2021, Data for Good’s work on climate expanded to include the above mentioned climate change opinion survey with the YPCCC to explore public climate change knowledge, attitudes, policy preferences, and behaviors across more than 30 countries and territories. The survey, conducted in partnership with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, asked a sample of Facebook users to participate when they logged on. In all, more than 76,000 users accepted the offer over a two-week period in late winter 2021.
Survey results indicated that more than 6 in 10 people across all countries and territories want more information about climate change. But additional results were sobering. While 66 percent of respondents from the United States indicated they were somewhat or very worried about climate change, the country ranked in the bottom fifth of nations surveyed. Roughly 34 percent of respondents said they were very worried or not worried at all.
Meta and the YPCCC published the survey findings in June 2021 under the title “International Public Opinion on Climate Change,” and the survey highlighted a recurring challenge experts face in communicating topics related to climate science – the complexity of the issues involved.
Climatologist Peter Thorne, professor of physical geography in the Department of Geography at Maynooth University, in Maynooth, Ireland, says everyone can benefit from simpler communication about climate and climate science.
“It’s the complexity in this, the fact that we talk in riddles and acronyms,” Thorne says. “We say things like ‘aerosols,’ and you think, ‘hairspray can,’ [but] what we actually mean is ‘small atmospheric particulates that scatter incoming energy from the sun and stop it reaching the surface of the Earth.’ We talk in code, and we are so embedded in that code that we slip into that code constantly.”
Climate Science Center
In September 2020, Meta unveiled a public resource page that features credible, trusted, and vetted resources from climate science organizations and publications. Meta launched the initiative as the Climate Science Center on Facebook in four countries to connect people with science-based information on climate change. Since then, the initiative has expanded to serve people in more than 100 countries, has attracted more than 3.8 million followers, and serves more than 100,000 daily visitors.
Andrea Vallone, product policy manager for climate content, says the hub engages users around the world on the issue of climate by helping to promote science and fact.
In the beginning, the Climate Science Center was information-heavy. Vallone admits that in the early months there was too much information on the page and that it was challenging for users to consume it all in a meaningful way. Meta has since continued to update the hub to make the data more accessible—prioritizing visual and engaging formats like videos and quizzes.
Adding interactive aspects to the CSC has helped to pull in users. Visitors are given the opportunity to like, comment on, and share everything. The page also allows users to contribute to group initiatives. (For instance, one recent survey prompted visitors to share a post about the way humans can work together to help the planet. It elicited 52,000 responses in less than 48 hours.)
Sharing is caring
This shareability can be a powerful tool for communities.
Vincent Gonguet, director of product management for climate at Meta, says that when factually accurate information is shared, it can build trust—both online and in the real world.
“When you hear something from a friend or when you hear from your community leaders, it unlocks many things,” he says. “It builds relevance because things are local. And there is probably a key in unlocking this discussion within communities. But again, there is this challenge of preserving the integrity of the science, especially when this is such a complex topic.”
Valerie Masson-Delmotte agrees. A climate scientist and the co-chair of Working Group 1 at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Masson-Delmotte notes that sharing information and feelings in a group setting can help make a complex subject like climate less daunting.
“Sometimes the scale of climate change can be paralyzing due to the emotions and feelings involved,” she says. “This all can lead to denial or despair or inaction. Anything that can create a group where you can share that and then go beyond the emotions after you’ve processed your emotions, you’re ready to act.”
In recent weeks, Meta has expanded the Climate Science Center to incorporate new modules. One such module is a quiz designed in collaboration with the IPCC that tests the user’s knowledge about climate change. Another new feature provides visitors with information about climate-related crises, such as wildfires. Meta also plans to add a new section that lists the greenhouse gas emissions of individual countries and compares that data to their government’s stated commitments and targets.
A recent report by the IPCC underscored that while we can’t stop global warming from intensifying over the next 30 years, there is action that we can take now to help slow or even stabilize rising temperatures. Gonguet says it’s important to work this long-term perspective into the way people talk about the subject.
The Climate Science Center offers extensive information about the climate crisis, with each fact backed by a reliable primary source.
Here are a few:
· At least 97 percent of published climate experts agree that global warming is real and caused by humans. The myth that scientists disagree on climate change comes from misleading petitions that don’t accurately represent the climate science community. These open petitions typically include non-scientists as well as scientists working in unrelated fields. Among scientists who study and publish research on the earth’s climate, there is overwhelming agreement that global warming is caused by humans. Source: NASA.
· Renewable energy sources like wind and solar are already cost-competitive with fossil fuels and are becoming cheaper each year. This is particularly true when you factor in the cost of remediating the impact of pollution and the effect on human health and global warming. When all these costs are included, the relative cost of renewable energy is even lower. Source: International Energy Agency.
· Rising temperatures cause water to evaporate from land faster, causing heat waves, droughts, and wildfires to increase in frequency and intensity. Over the past 50 years, scientists have measured an increase in the severity of these conditions worldwide. A common misconception holds that droughts and wildfires aren’t caused by climate change because they happen naturally during annual dry seasons, but the research shows that climate change is intensifying these events. Source: Yale School of the Environment.
To view more climate facts, visit here
Addressing climate misinformation
Social media’s rapid rise over the past two decades and the public’s reliance on it for information has seen greater focus on misinformation—the posting and sharing of fallacies or distortions.
Meta’s systems help identify potential misinformation and take enforcement action based on an independent judgment of falsity based on a series of fact-checking protocols. These protocols are administered by external fact-checking organizations, all of whom adhere to a code of principles from Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). This code includes nonpartisanship and fairness; transparency of sources; transparency of funding and organization; transparency of methodology; and an open and an honest corrections policy.
Meta’s independent fact-checking program was launched in 2016 and has expanded considerably since. According to Mike Bradow, product policy manager at Meta, the program assesses the veracity of sources and through human review helps train the algorithms to improve the accuracy in predicting when and where misinformation surfaces—information that can then be forwarded to fact-checkers to evaluate.
“We don’t believe that Meta, or any technology platform for that matter, should be making decisions on their own about what is true or false,” Bradow explains. “This is where outside partnerships are so important.”
What’s next
Much like the climate crisis itself, Meta’s Climate Science Center will continue to evolve.
In recent weeks, the company has announced a $1 million investment in a new climate grant program—in partnership with Poynter’s IFCN—to support organizations working to combat climate misinformation. Through this new program, Meta will invest in proposals that build alliances between fact-checkers, climate experts and other organizations to support projects that focus on combating climate misinformation.
In addition, the company is expanding its “Facts About Climate Change” section in the Climate Science Center. Two new areas of information include “Sea levels have risen an average of 8 inches globally since 1880,” and “The way scientists predict changes in climate patterns has proven to be reliable.” These facts tap expertise from the YPCCC, the University of Cambridge, and Monash University to debunk common climate myths and provide reliable information from leading climate organizations. In countries where the Center isn’t available, Meta will send people to the UN Environment Programme, a leading global environmental authority.
Additionally, Meta has introduced a new video series with Sydel Curry-Lee on Facebook Watch to highlight young climate advocates on Facebook and Instagram. The company will continue its support of the Say It With Science series on Facebook, where the UN Foundation and IPCC bring together scientists and youth advocates to present the latest climate science to the world.
There are many components that will contribute to solving the problem of climate change – both now and in the future. Trusted, credible information will be a big part of how we get there together.