Facebook fights fake climate news in the UK

Soon, those who share fake news about climate change on social networks will have a hard time.Facebook announces a crackdown, starting in the UK.

Facebook will start reporting the fake news about climate changes conveyed through the platform:the reporting will take place through a flag, a label, which will refer users to the Facebook's climate science information center, an archive of verified information and news on the environment.The experiment, at least in its first phase, will only concern users of the United Kingdom.

The precedent of the US elections 

According to what the Guardian writes, the company led by Mark Zuckerberg has not yet announced the criteria used to determine which posts will receive the flag.THE'algorithm it will still be very similar to what in the course of the recent US election campaign (and also in the days immediately following, characterized by strong accusations of fraud by the outgoing president Donald Trump) was used to discern truthful posts from those that instead shared clichés, misconceptions or simply fake news.Even then Facebook marked the post in question with a link  that took users back to a Voting information center.

Fake news on climate change replaced by scientific content 

In the new section of the Climate Science Information Center, also available in Italy, Facebook tries to dispel false myths related to the environment, like the one according to which it would not be true that polar bears are in danger due to global warming, or instead that excess carbon emissions help plant life.To develop this content, Facebook is working with climate communications experts from around the world, includingCambridge University.

“The spread of harmful falsehoods undermines the level of international cooperation needed to prevent global warming,” he told the Guardian Sander van der Linden, a Cambridge academic who collaborated on the project.“Facebook is uniquely positioned to combat the circulation of misinformation online, and the myth-busting section is an important step in exposing dangerous falsehoods.”