06.12.2020

Global Warming: Facebook Thinks Its Opinion Is Better Than Yours

Hyperpartisan “Fact-checkers” Appear to Find a Video Loophole in the 2019 Policy Change of Not Blocking Opinion Pieces

The CO2 Coalition of climate scientists today published a Science & Policy Brief by Dr. Patrick Michaels, formerly the president of the association of state climatologists and an expert reviewer and author for the UN’s climate change agency, about the recent censorship by Facebook of his three-million view appearance on the Life, Liberty & Levin television show. “Facebook Thinks its Opinion is Better than Yours” provides a detailed scientific response, with links to all relevant documents, to the “false” label placed by Facebook in May on Dr. Michaels’ expert opinion that about half of the one degree Celsius global warming since 1900 is natural, with the other half being human-caused, from emissions of carbon dioxide. As the Science & Policy Brief notes, Dr. Michaels’ opinion is shared by the UN’s climate change agency.
A “false” label on Facebook creates a “shadow ban” that blocks distribution and advertisement. In 2019 Facebook, relying on a group called Climate Feedback as its “fact-checker,” similarly censored an op-ed on computer models of the climate that was published in the Washington Examiner by Dr. Michaels and the CO2 Coalition’s executive director, former statistics professor Caleb Rossiter. After a detailed appeal to CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Dr. Michaels and Dr. Rossiter, Facebook removed the label and adopted a new policy of not submitting op-eds to “fact-checking.” “There are two issues we are asking Mr. Zuckerberg to address in this new case,” said Dr. Rossiter. “First, Climate Feedback is taking advantage of the lack of clarity in Facebook’s definition of ‘opinion’ that will not be subject to censorship. Why should spoken opinions about scientific judgment be censored when written ones are not? Second, why is Facebook still relying on Eric Michelman’s alarmist Climate Feedback? As Dr. Michaels shows in the Brief, this group has a long history as a biased ‘goon squad’ whose climate science claims are sloppy and weak.” Download the Science & Policy Brief Facebook Thinks its Opinion is Better than Yours
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