Twitter Changes Ad Policy Over Climate Change

Twitter says it will no longer allow advertisers on its site who deny the scientific consensus on climate change, echoing a policy already in place at Google, per the AP. "Ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis,” the company said in a statement outlining its new policy. There was no indication the change would affect what users post on the social media site, which along with Facebook has been targeted by groups seeking to promote misleading claims about climate change.

The announcement coinciding with Earth Day came hours before the European Union agreed upon a deal requiring big tech companies to vet their sites more closely for hate speech, disinformation, and other harmful content. Twitter said it would provide more information in the coming months on how it plans to provide “reliable, authoritative context to the climate conversations” its users engage in, including from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The UN-backed science panel's reports on the causes and effects of climate change provide the basis for international negotiations to curb climate change.

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