Facebook has recently announced the launching of their science-based information hub about climate change. The popular social media hub aims to promote factual information from trusted sources. Starting Tuesday, users in the US, UK, France and Germany will be seeing links and information from Climate Change Information Center which will feature articles from reputable news sources.
NPR.Org: The hub provides a simple, easy-to-find repository for authoritative information about what is happening to our climate, how it’s changing
In an interview by NPR.Org with Facebook’s Vice President Nick Clegg has announced that Facebook is launching a climate change information page in an effort to promote facts about climate change from trusted sources.
The climate information page features articles from reputable news sources and social media posts from government and international agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the World Meteorological Organization.
“We are hopeful this climate science information center will be very effective,” says Clegg. “It provides a simple, easy-to-find repository for authoritative information about what is happening to our climate, how it’s changing. And our experience with the COVID information hub is that there is a real appetite for people to find out more for themselves.”
CNBC: The new feature is called the Climate Science Information Center, and it will provide Facebook users with facts, figures and data from factual sources
According to CNBS, the climate change hub comes after the company dealt with a rash of misinformation across its services regarding the cause of the wildfires raging across the Western U.S. One article containing false information blaming the wildfires on antifa arsonists had been shared more than 63,000 times on Facebook, according to The Guardian.
The new feature will provide Facebook users with facts, figures and data from factual sources, the company said in a blog post. These sources include the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, U.N. Environment Programme, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, World Meteorological Organization and the Met Office.
In addition to the information center, Facebook said it will continue to reduce the distribution of posts containing false information on its News Feed feature and it will label those posts as false. Facebook, however, did not say it would remove those posts. The company also did not say if it would remove or label posts within private Facebook groups that contain misinformation about climate change.
