Climate Scientists Fleeing Twitter Amid Hostilities

What's the story?

• Under Elon Musk's leadership, Twitter is proving to be hostile toward climate change experts, leading several scientists to vocally leave the platform, citing mistreatment, combativeness, and trolling.
• According to an analysis by the University of London, climate change misinformation has grown to unprecedented levels since Musk's takeover in October 2022. Climate scientists have reported receiving mass spam and insults as climate change denialism thrives on the platform. This is prompting them to seek out new venues and outlets.

Climate change denial on Twitter

• An analysis by the University of London researchers found that more tweets used climate-skeptical terminology in 2022 than any other year. They discovered 850,000 climate-skeptic tweets or retweets in 2022, compared to 650,000 in 2021 and 220,000 in 2020.
• 40% of the tweets containing climate change skeptic language contained the hashtag #climatescam. The 2022 United Nations climate conference set off a doubling of #climatescam tweets. Now, when users search for #climate on Twitter, #climatescam appears as a top result.
• Robert Rohde, from the non-profit environmental data analysis group Berkeley Earth, analyzed the activity of accounts of popular climate scientists and found that the average number of likes was down 38% and retweets were down 40% since Musk's takeover.

What are climate scientists saying?

• Climate scientist Peter Gleick, who has nearly 99,000 followers, announced on May 21 that he would be leaving the platform due to a growth in hate speech:

"[I]n the past few months, since the takeover and changes at Twitter, the amount, vituperativeness, and intensity of abuse has skyrocketed."

• Climatologist Katharine Hayhoe did an experiment by publishing a climate change tweet before and after the takeover to gauge the responses. She noticed a rise in hostile comments from bots that were spreading misinformation. She found that the rates of bots and troll responses had risen 15 to 30 times over a two-month period. 
• Hayhoe found that of a master list of 3,000 climate scientists whose accounts she monitors, 100 left the platform after the takeover. She told the New York Times:

"Climate denial on Twitter was already a dumpster fire; now, it's as if it had a litre of gas thrown on it."

• Andrew Dessler, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, said:

"Climate communications on Twitter are less useful (now) given that I can see that my tweets are getting less engagement. In response to almost any tweet concerning climate change, I find my notifications inundated with replies from verified accounts making misleading or misguided claims."

• Michael Mann from the University of Pennsylvania said that he believes the attacks are orchestrated, saying:

"I've seen a huge rise in trolls and bots. Many target tweets of mine for attack. The professional trolls manipulate the online environment with strategic posts that generate conflict and division, leading to a feeding frenzy." 

• Jennie King, from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said:

"I can understand climate scientists saying this is not a productive place for conversations with each other any more. They've become lightening rods for hate speech and death threats, we are seeing a real escalation of threats against them, intended to drive them off the platform."

What are people saying?

• Twitter has not commented on the algorithm changes that could contribute to the lower visibility of climate scientists' posts.
• Climate change denier Marc Morano said:

"My Twitter account and many others opposing the 'consensus' climate view have all increased visibility dramatically since Musk took over Twitter. Whatever Musk is altering, I hope he keeps it up."

• Musk had previously tweeted in Jan.:

"People on the right should see more 'left-wing' stuff and people on the left should see more 'right-wing' stuff. But you can just block it if you want to stay in an echo chamber."

What is next?

• Many scientists are joining the crowdfunded, decentralized forum powered by Mastodon, which was launched in 2016. Bob Kopp, from Rutgers University, said:

"I don't think I'm getting much value from being on Twitter now, there are more interesting conversations happening at Mastodon."

Are you worried about the attacks on climate scientists?

—Emma Kansiz