Why Platforms Don’t Catch Climate Misinformation — and How to Change That
Climate misinformation presents a troubling paradox: while most Americans believe that climate change is real and human-caused, online misinformation continues to erode public trust in climate science. Many platforms lack specific policies addressing climate disinformation, and even those with policies in place struggle to enforce them effectively. Why do platforms fail to adequately address this problem, and what would it take to change?
In mid-October, the Harvard Radcliffe Institute convened ten experts — trust and safety professionals, science communicators and AI researchers — to examine online civic trust related to climate science. The seminar, organized by professor Jodi Schneider of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Dr. Rod Abhari of Northwestern University, explored how misinformation shapes public understanding of climate change and what mechanisms might rebuild trust in climate science online.
This piece distills perspectives from that session, focusing specifically on the trust and safety dimensions: why platforms struggle to both create and to enforce climate misinformation policies, and what structural changes could address these failures.
Related Knowledge Center: Information integrity
In an increasingly fractured media landscape, truth has been a casualty in the public discussion. Coverage has been warped by the business needs of struggling news organizations, and a significant segment of the public relies on bad-faith outlets that are little more than propagandists. While fact-checking has become routine, some organizations are exploring other ways to combat the trends. And misinformation spewed by AI-driven chatbots has become more of a feature than simply a bug.
Fact-checking and its detractors
Related Knowledge Center: Trust in news media
In ancient media times, when newspapers made money and three network news behemoths roamed the land, a vast majority of Americans trusted what they saw on television and read in the paper. No more: The slide in trust that began in the 1970s continues to this day, with fewer and fewer people believing what they find in the news cacophony.