The Facebook logo on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018. -
Richard Drew / AP / SIPA
The independent think tank InfluenceMap has decided to put Facebook to the test.
It must be said that the American company repeated in September to be "committed to fighting climate change".
And the conclusion is not bright for the social network.
In a report released Thursday, the group accuses the US giant of allowing misleading climate ads to flourish.
Some 8 million views
InfluenceMap used public data from Facebook to identify 51 ads denying the link between human activity and climate change, which were viewed a total of 8 million times on the platform during the first half of 2020. Of all these identified ads , only one was withdrawn by the social network, while the others were able to stay online for the entire time planned for their campaign.
According to the report, four conservative American groups were behind most of the ads.
A total of nine advertisers collectively spent $ 42,000 on the 51 ads.
They were more likely to be seen by men over the age of 55 in rural US states, including Wyoming and Texas.
Several strategies
The most common strategy has been to attack the credibility of climate science, including asserting that there is no scientific consensus on the subject.
The second most used strategy was to question the effect of greenhouse gases emitted by the combustion of hydrocarbons on climate change.
Reacting to the report, US Senator Elizabeth Warren told the think tank: "This devastating report from InfluenceMap reveals how Facebook lets climate skeptics spread dangerous hogwash to millions of people."
The senator was one of four Democratic senators who wrote to the platform in July to demand that it "end the loopholes that allow climate misinformation to spread."
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