Google and YouTube are guilty of profiting of climate misinformation. These scientists have had enough.
Google and YouTube have a policy not to spread or make money from climate disinformation on their platforms. But they aren’t enforcing it.
Researchers from the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition recently identified 200 YouTube videos containing climate misinformation and disinformation with 73.8 million views in total. And 63 percent of popular climate denial articles still carry Google ads.
The climate crisis is accelerating, and we don’t have time to waste: take a moment to demand that Google and YouTube enforce their climate disinformation policy.
The Union of Concerned Scientists is working with partners at the Climate Action Against Climate Disinformation to gather as many signers as possible and will use this petition in ongoing conversations with Google and YouTube.
To: Google
The climate crisis is an existential threat to our planet’s biodiversity and to human civilization as we know it. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has described the “growth in misinformation” as an attempt “to maintain the status quo by actors in positions of power.”
And United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said recently, “the climate crisis demands honesty.” Mis- and disinformation on platforms like Google and YouTube pose a legitimate threat to our world’s ability to respond to this crisis.
The climate crisis intensifies every day. There’s no time to waste. Fighting climate change is hard enough -let’s not make it harder by amplifying disinformation. I urge you to take immediate action to protect your users from climate disinformation by implementing the policies recommended by the Climate Action Against Disinformation Coalition.
Thank you for your consideration.
Original source: https://secure.ucsusa.org
