Facebook let fossil-fuel industry push climate misinformation: Report

Facebook has come under criticism for its failure to enforce its own rules to curb an oil and gas industry misinformation campaign over the climate crisis during the 2020 US presidential election, according to a new analysis.

The report released by the London-based thinktank InfluenceMap on Thursday highlighted an increase in advertising on the social media site by ExxonMobil and other fossil-fuel companies which was aimed at shaping the political debate about policies to address the climate crisis.

The fossil-fuel industry has moved away from outright denying global heating, and is presently employing social media to promote oil and gas as part of the solution, InfluenceMap said based on its research.

Facebook, the thinkthank said, played a role in facilitating the dissemination of false assertions about global heating through failing to consistently apply its own policies to stop erroneous advertising.

“Despite Facebook’s public support for climate action, it continues to allow its platform to be used to spread fossil-fuel propaganda,” the report said. “Not only is Facebook inadequately enforcing its existing advertising policies, it’s clear that these policies are not keeping pace with the critical need for urgent climate action.”

According to the report, 25 oil and gas industry organizations spent at least $9.5m to place over 25,000 ads on Facebook’s US platforms in 2020. The ads were viewed over 431m times.

“The industry is using a range of messaging tactics that are far more nuanced than outright statements of climate denial. Some of the most significant tactics found included tying the use of oil and gas to maintaining a high quality of life, promoting fossil gas as green, and publicizing the voluntary actions taken by the industry on climate change,” the report said.

InfluenceMap also said its research indentified an increase in spending on Facebook ads in July 2020, immediately after then-presidential candidate Joe Biden unveiled his $2tn climate plan to promote the use of clean energy.

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The spending remained high for a period of four months after the election.

“This suggests the oil and gas industry uses Facebook advertising strategically and for politically motivated purposes,” the report said.

The report also showed that 6,782 energy industry ads on Facebook last year promoted claims that natural gas is a green or low carbon fuel, despite research by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change saying otherwise.

Exxon, in particular, used the social media site to push continued use of oil as affordable, reliable and important to keep the US from relying on other countries for its energy supply, according to the research.

The company was also accused of running misleading ads aimed at shifting the greater responsibility for cutting carbon emissions from industry to the lifestyle choices of ordinary American citizens.

According to calculations by the International Energy Agency, global targets to reduce emissions rely heavily on the energy industry moving to green technologies, and that only 8% of reductions will come from consumer choices like taking fewer flights, according to the report.

“These messages are often packaged in adverts promoting the climate-friendliness of oil and gas companies and the necessity of oil and gas for maintaining a high quality of life,” the report said.

In a letter to Facebook’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg last year, some US senators expressed concerns that the social media platform was permitting demonstrably false claims about the climate crisis to be posted on the grounds they were “opinion”.

“Given Facebook’s long and troubling history with disinformation, it is deeply concerning that Facebook has now determined that climate disinformation is reportedly “immune to fact-checking”, said the senators, including Elizabeth Warren.

“The climate crisis is too important to allow blatant lies to spread on social media without consequence.”

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