Twitter bans misleading ads on climate change

Twitter has announced that it will no longer allow advertisers on its platform who deny the scientific consensus on climate change.

"Ads shouldn't detract from important conversations about the climate crisis,” the company said in a statement outlining its new policy Friday, on Earth Day.

“Misleading information about climate change can undermine efforts to protect the planet,” the microblogging site added, citing the latest assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

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However, there was no indication that the change would affect what users post on the social media site, which along with Facebook has been targeted by groups seeking to promote misleading claims about climate change.

In October 2021, Google announced a similar policy in which it prohibits ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts “well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change”.

The announcement by Twitter coinciding with Earth Day came hours before the European Union agreed upon a deal requiring big tech companies to vet their sites more closely for hate speech, disinformation and other harmful content.

Twitter said it would provide more information in the coming months on how it plans to provide reliable, authoritative context to the climate conversations its users engage in, including from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

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The UN-backed science panel's reports on the causes and effects of climate change provide the basis for international negotiations to curb climate change.

The company already has a dedicated climate topic on its site and offered what it described as pre-bunks during last year's UN Climate conference to counter misinformation surrounding climate change.

(With PTI inputs)