Facebook Accused of Allowing Climate Deniers to Promote Their Views

Podesta and Steyer
John Podesta By Lawrence Jackson, White House photographer, Public Domain, Link.
Tom Steyer by Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – Tom Steyer, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

A group calling themselves climate power have demanded Facebook take a more aggressive stance against people who promote what they claim are climate lies. The signatories to their open letter include failed radical green Democrat candidate Tom Steyer, and former Clinton administration chief of staff John Podesta.

FACEBOOK: ACT URGENTLY TO TAKE ON THE THREAT OF CLIMATE DENIERS

A follow-up open letter to Helle Thorning-Schmidt and Facebook’s Oversight Board

July 7, 2020

To: Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Facebook Oversight Board

Cc: Mark Zuckerberg, Afia Asantewaa Asare-Kyei, Evelyn Aswad, Endy Bayuni, Catalina Botero-Marino, Katherine Chen, Nighat Dad, Jamal Greene, Pamela Karlan, Tawakkol Karman, Maina Kiai, Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Ronaldo Lemos, Michael McConnell, Julie Owono, Emi Palmor, Alan Rusbridger, András Sajó, Nicolas Suzor, Nick Clegg


Ms. Thorning-Schmidt,

We are disappointed to have received a response from the Oversight Board’s head of communications to our July 1, 2020 letter instead of yourself or another Oversight Board co-chair. The Facebook-created loophole allows climate deniers to circumvent independent fact-checkers to publish lies and misinformation.

The Facebook Oversight Board was first proposed more than two years ago by Mark Zuckerberg himself. It’s been 19 months since Mr. Zuckerberg formally announced the Board’s creation and almost 10 months since Facebook’s senior-most leaders touted the launch of the Oversight Board to members of the media worldwide. Your participation as a co-chair was announced in early May.

Facebook leaders have found time in the intervening months to sit with members of the press to herald the creation of an action-oriented Oversight Board. Meanwhile, Facebook is allowing misinformation to spread, and they are hiding behind the promise of an “Oversight Board” that appears to be in name only. The Board does not hear cases and recently said it is not yet operational.

As environmental leaders, we feel an urgent duty to take on the threat of climate deniers and climate change. We expect Facebook to work with the same urgency.

Climate denial and misinformation are deadly. By preventing any meaningful form of oversight and allowing these lies to go unchecked, Facebook is jeopardizing the health and well-being of people around the globe with the most vulnerable communities most at risk.

If the Board exists to “make the final judgment call on what should be acceptable speech in a community that reflects the social norms and values of people all around the world,” as Mr. Zuckerberg stated, we need your oversight now more than ever. Hate speech, climate denial, and health threats have tarnished the integrity of Facebook. If the company fails to enact any tangible oversight, we struggle to see the value of this Board as anything but a public relations stunt.

Mr. Zuckerberg has refused to recognize that he must get the facts right on climate and refused to acknowledge that climate denial on his platform is as dangerous a threat to future generations as any.

As a global climate leader, you know that climate change is not opinion. It is fact. And it is actively killing humans across the globe. We see you as our ally in the fight to protect our planet for future generations, and we ask you to lead the charge to fix the climate loophole.

We urge you to hold the first meeting of the full Oversight Committee in the next two weeks to address Facebook allowing the spread of misinformation and overturning decisions made by scientists and fact-checkers.

Until Facebook takes a stand, climate deniers will continue to exploit your platform to sow discord and put the world’s health and security at dire risk.

Signed:

  • Stacey Abrams, Founder of Fair Fight and the Southern Economic Advancement Project
  • LaTricea D. Adams, Founder CEO & President, Black Millennials 4 Flint
  • Ken Berlin, CEO, Climate Reality Action Fund
  • Carol Browner, League of Conservation Voters Board Chair and Former EPA Administrator
  • Dominique Browning, Senior Director and Co-founder, Moms Clean Air Force
  • Michael Brune, Sierra Club Executive Director
  • Gerald Butts, President, New Climate and former Principal Secretary to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
  • Alex Cornell du Houx, Co-Founder and President, Elected Officials to Protect America
  • Abbie Dillen, Earthjustice President
  • Ken Kimmell, Union of Concerned Scientists President
  • Lori Lodes, Climate Power 2020 Executive Director
  • Gina McCarthy, President and CEO of the NRDC Action Fund and former EPA Administrator
  • Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, 350.org North America Director
  • Collin O’Mara, National Wildlife Federation President
  • Erich Pica, Friends of the Earth U.S. President
  • John Podesta, Founder of the Center for American Progress
  • Tom Steyer, Climate activist and Founder of NextGen America
  • Robert Wendelgass, Clean Water Action President and CEO
  • Jamie Williams,  President, The Wilderness Society

Source: https://www.climatepower2020.org/facebook-must-work-with-urgency/

Katharine Hayhoe has also attacked Facebook, though she is not a signatory on the climate power letter or their original demand.

Katharine appears unhappy that an apparent shift in policy is allowing people who disagree with her to promote their views on Facebook, while at the same time it is more difficult for Katharine to promote her videos.

Denial expands on Facebook as scientists face restrictions

Scott Waldman, E&E News reporterPublished: Monday, July 6, 2020

A climate scientist says Facebook is restricting her ability to share research and fact-check posts containing climate misinformation.

Those constraints are occuring as groups that reject climate science increasingly use the platform to promote misleading theories about global warming.

E&E News previously reported that Facebook intervened to reverse a fact-check that prevented a group — which claims that human-caused carbon dioxide is beneficial — from advertising on the site. By labeling the false claim as “opinion,” Facebook permitted the group, named the CO2 Coalition, to resume promoting misinformation (Climatewire, June 23).

In response, a group of scientists with Climate Feedback — a part of Facebook’s approved fact-checking network — evaluated the post and found that it relied on “cherry-picked” evidence and was misleading. It was marked as “false.”

But weeks later that label was quietly removed. Officials with the CO2 Coalition said they were helped by a “conservative contact” at Facebook whose intervention resulted in getting the decision reversed.

Facebook’s explanation for its fact-check of the CO2 Coalition is disputed by groups on both sides.

“Opinion is separate and apart; there is an opinion rating but it is separate and apart from false or true, or partly false or partly true,” Stone said.

Hayhoe has declined to comply with Facebook’s requirements for promoting her posts. She says the platform created inappropriate burdens for scientists who want to share objective information about climate change.

“These are the facts,” she said. “These videos have been peer-reviewed, and I still can’t boost them on Facebook.”

Read more: https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063511857

I applaud Facebook apparently recognising that their fact checking system has been abused, and for them making an effort to level the playing field.

But I am concerned about Hayhoe’s claim that she is finding it difficult to promote her videos, and hope she and Facebook reach a speedy resolution.

Everyone should be treated fairly.

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Editor
July 8, 2020 6:12 pm

Facebook Accused of Allowing Climate Deniers to Promote Their Views

Reply to  Eric Worrall
July 8, 2020 10:38 pm

People who believe themselves morally superior always feel aggrieved when not treated with reverence (i.e., when treated fairly) and (horrors!) equated with everyone else (their inferiors).

Fixated belief demands deference. Fair treatment is then always offensive.

AGW believers.

Ed Zuiderwijk
Reply to  Pat Frank
July 9, 2020 4:42 am

There’s a word in the dictionary for people who are aggrieved when not treated with due reverence: mafiosi.

Robert of Ottawa
Reply to  Eric Worrall
July 8, 2020 11:29 pm

The fires of extreme intolerance are ablaze around the world at present. It appears that totalitarianism is all the rage; the zeitgeist. This is what happens when Marxists control the universities.

Joel Snider
Reply to  Eric Worrall
July 9, 2020 4:10 pm

The best liars lie to themselves best.

Michael Williams
Reply to  David Middleton
July 8, 2020 10:27 pm

Woe unto them who dare question the Holy Mountain of Conformist Climate Change theory! Dash them, ban them, CENSOR them, for they are evil. Can you believe it?! They do not agree with the superior climate change fascists!!!!!!.

Shame shame!!!!!!!!!!!

Dan Sudlik
Reply to  Michael Williams
July 9, 2020 7:23 am

We must listen to this collection of brilliant climatologists, physical scientists and other wondrous experts Insteon of such pretenders as Dr. Roy Spencer. (Do I really need a sarc)

4TimesAYear
Reply to  David Middleton
July 9, 2020 12:26 am

I like this one:
“Nobody ever says anything about the sun – it’s our fault they got global warming, but they discount the sun…you got this big ball of fire in the sky but yet that has nothing to do with it; it’s humans that are doing it.
That’s like sitting at a bonfire and somebody lighting a cigarette and somebody else going, ‘put out that cigarette – it’s getting hot in here.’ It doesn’t make any sense.”

4TimesAYear
Reply to  4TimesAYear
July 9, 2020 12:59 am

How did I get the wrong link – I didn’t even watch that…Let’s try this again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92MZwXsbZyM

July 8, 2020 6:16 pm

Since when does telling the truth need to be allowed?

This is all about hate speech and I doubt Facebook will prohibit all of the hate speech against a white president and the ‘deplorables’ who voted for him.

Reply to  co2isnotevil
July 8, 2020 6:57 pm

Climate Change Alarmism is their religion. It is their path to political power, just as conversion and profiteering from it was for the Roman Catholic Church 1500 years ago. Quite a profitable gig it has been for them for the better part of 2,000 years. Now another religion is muscling in on their territory of lost souls.
When anyone goes against the Left’s Climate Scripture orthodoxy, they are to be silenced, with force if necessary. If it’s is someone with power, then to the Inquisition they go.

In their eyes, we’re all irredeemable blasphemers here at WUWT.

Willem Post
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
July 8, 2020 7:55 pm

Radical Dem/Progs want totalitarian control of their climate change message, just like the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages.

Deniers of the approved climate change dogmas are not allowed, and are to be eradicated.

If Biden gets elected, he will just be a figurehead, who reads from teleprompters, so he won’t be wandering into the woods. He will be totally controlled by the Podesta, et al. Biden is a smile-face yes-man.

Did Nancy Pelosi’s take a knee for the many thousands who died in various wars? Never
But if there is political advantage to be had width BLM, down she goes.

The same it is with climate change. It is all about political advantage.

There is no way humans can change the climate.
That, fortunately, is controlled by a much higher power.
The world population taking a knee would not make one iota of difference.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Willem Post
July 8, 2020 10:29 pm

“There is no way humans can change the climate.
That, fortunately, is controlled by a much higher power.”

Oh brother.

Reply to  Jeff Alberts
July 9, 2020 8:50 am

The laws of physics are a much higher power than the needs of politics.

MarkW
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
July 9, 2020 9:37 am

I thought he was talking about the sun.

sycomputing
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
July 9, 2020 6:01 pm

Oh brother.

Not sure that applies in your case, Jeff.

Let’s hope that changes soon! 🙂

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
July 9, 2020 8:17 pm

“Not sure that applies in your case, Jeff.

Let’s hope that changes soon! 🙂”

SYH.

sycomputing
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
July 10, 2020 10:24 am

SYH.

Aw now that’s just so cold its “not even wrong” Jeff.

You KNOW I’m acronymically handicapped . . .

MarkW
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
July 10, 2020 2:05 pm

The Lord works in mysterious ways Jeff.

bill Johnston
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
July 9, 2020 4:27 pm

And I wear the appellation proudly.

Earthling2
July 8, 2020 6:19 pm

I have the “Welcome to Adjustocene” editorial cartoon on my FB Home Page and it hasn’t been taken down, and my cousin is always promoting climate ‘denialism’ very loudly and obviously, and he is rarely taken down. So good on FaceBook. Plus they give free bandwidth to much of the 3rd world so people with a cell phone can at least communicate through Messenger without having to purchasing a temp ‘load’ as they call it for the equivalent of about $1 for 3 days. So it is free communication for them, which they say got abused with Burma’s Rohingya Muslims and contributed to genocide, although there is much more to that whole story than the lame stream media makes it out to be.

Out of all the big tech, I will give FB the highest marks, whereas Google and Twitter have become downright evil, and they should be going to jail for some of the stunts they are pulling. Maybe Big Social Media should be regulated to a point, but we have to allow all opposing views of every subject, similar to what goes on here at WUWT. No foul language, and no heavy Ad Hominem attacks. Actually, this place is much better self censored than Twitter, with some of the Mob activity that goes on there.

Are they talking about censoring and imprisoning us here for discussing Hadley Cells and the Jet Stream? They should get out more and smell the roses, those dim witted twits.

Curious George
July 8, 2020 6:20 pm

“Climate denial and misinformation are deadly.” And progressives are uniquely qualified to decide what is a climate denial and misinformation. That’s the great tradition of Franco, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, and Chairman Mao. Everybody has to think only progressive.

Charles Garner
Reply to  Curious George
July 8, 2020 8:58 pm

Add Pol Pot and stir.

noaaprogrammer
Reply to  Charles Garner
July 8, 2020 10:05 pm

Don’t forget the Castro oil.

Bruce Cobb
Reply to  noaaprogrammer
July 9, 2020 6:24 am

Reminds me of the jingle:

Hold the hamburg, hold the cheeses
We will tell you what will please us
We’re the Climate Jesus and we
Want it our way!

4TimesAYear
Reply to  Curious George
July 9, 2020 12:20 am

Yep. the elite.
“There’s nothing older in the history of mankind than the idea that wisdom resides in the few, the elite, and they have been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us….the ugliest parts of human history are explained by that kind of phenomenon – where people think that they have the right to control the lives of other people” – Walter Williams

Scissor
July 8, 2020 6:21 pm

Spirit cookers looking for people to broil.

PaulH
July 8, 2020 6:23 pm

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Blacksmith
Reply to  PaulH
July 9, 2020 12:12 am

X 100

Richard Patton
Reply to  PaulH
July 9, 2020 10:49 am

I don’t read Latin but I think you are saying “who will watch the watchers.” If I’m right gimme 10.

Tiger Bee Fly
July 8, 2020 6:26 pm

Sam Vaknin on the psychological toxicity of Facebook:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmXcjvL9VSc

Die, Facebook, die!

WR2
Reply to  Tiger Bee Fly
July 8, 2020 11:12 pm

Which of course is German for “The, Facebook, the!”

Tiger Bee Fly
Reply to  WR2
July 9, 2020 5:22 am

Thanks for starting my morning with a laugh. 🙂

Geoff Sherrington
July 8, 2020 6:28 pm

What personal goals do Steyer and Podesta have?
It is hard to imagine more than lots of fresh cash into their pockets. Their private time is surely too high-priced to waste on girly topics like weather variability. Has anyone ever read their explanations for their enthusiasm? References? Geoff S

Reply to  Eric Worrall
July 8, 2020 7:05 pm

Lil’ Stinky Steyer has 4 strikes against him in the Party of Slavery:
– white
– male
– hetero
– billionaire.

The Party of Jim Crow and the Klan only wants Lil’ Stinky for his money, and for him to give it to them and stay TF out of sight. Same for Mini-Mike.

Cube
Reply to  Eric Worrall
July 8, 2020 7:07 pm

Hey can’t be that stupid.

John Endicott
Reply to  Eric Worrall
July 9, 2020 3:18 am

but Steyer would have had a much better shot at the Democrat Presidential candidacy if he hadn’t focussed so hard on climate issues

That doesn’t mean he’s a true believer. It just means he, wrongly, believed that the climate issue would be a political winner (perhaps those people around him that you mention were urging him to push that particular issue as they believed it to be a political winner). Many a politician has push many an issue they didn’t actually believe because they (or their handlers) thought it appealed to a large enough voting block to win elections.

Yooper
July 8, 2020 6:29 pm

This is why WUWT is on Parler…

Not Chicken Little
July 8, 2020 6:39 pm

What are the odds that Facebook will come down on the side of lies, and tyranny? You “climate deniers” had better watch out, and admit that “the sky is falling!”

Walter Warm
July 8, 2020 6:39 pm

How many of those signatories have a vested interest (final stake of some form) in so-called Anthropomorphic Climate Change?

Reply to  Walter Warm
July 9, 2020 8:54 am

The only vested interest in alarmism that drives these folks is that the scientific truth is an existential threat to their politics.

July 8, 2020 6:43 pm

Mr. Zuckerberg has refused to recognize that he must get the facts right on climate and refused to acknowledge that climate denial on his platform is as dangerous a threat to future generations as any.

July 8, 2020 6:49 pm

The Left’s thought police aren’t even hiding their hatred of the First Amendment anymore. I find people on the signatory list to be of the most vile and irredeemable sort. Any Political power for them is the opportunity to destroy this country’s bedrock principles of Free Speech.

P.S.
I find one of the more entertaining Facebook pages is Climate Change is Crap. It comes out of the Land of Oz.
https://www.facebook.com/cciscrap.com.au/

but I’m easily entertained. 🙂

n.n
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
July 8, 2020 7:02 pm

A Trojan horse, a “burden” in utero h/t Obama, or civility bullshit h/t Althouse.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
July 8, 2020 10:43 pm

Unfortunately Joel, the comments supporting the page are pretty clueless.

Megs
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
July 9, 2020 1:18 am

I’m not on Facebook Joel but I flicked the link on to a friend who is so thanks for that. Did you notice that they shut down Michael Shellenburger’s articles?

MarkW
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
July 9, 2020 8:05 am

They believe in the 1st amendment, it’s just that they believe it doesn’t cover what they call hate speech.
Of course they define hate speech as anything that upsets them.
It doesn’t matter if their speech upsets others, because those others are evil deniers who have no rights.

July 8, 2020 6:50 pm

Uh, I don’t use Fakebook.

Reply to  T. C. Clark
July 8, 2020 7:12 pm

TC Clark,

Facebook sucks for a variety of reasons.

But who knows, maybe Zuckerberg will decide to not give in to the obvious bullying and take note of Michael Schellenberger’s recent epiphany.

sycomputing
Reply to  T. C. Clark
July 8, 2020 7:19 pm

+ X = (7.6B – 2.5B)!!

Justin Burch
Reply to  T. C. Clark
July 9, 2020 6:45 am

I too got off Facebook years ago and my life has been richer and better for it.

AlexS
July 8, 2020 7:11 pm

OT: any opinion on this? https://www.bairdmaritime.com/fishing-boat-world/longlining/opinion-tuna-price-fixing-scandal-implicates-global-ngos/

How tuna industry was almost destroyed by WWF, how then industry made a deal with WWF which got a 13% out of each tuna can. Shows how things work in ONG world.

CD in Wisconsin
July 8, 2020 7:14 pm

Two-minute hate from Orwell’s “1984”. Think of Goldstein as a climate-denying thought criminal….

bluecat57
July 8, 2020 7:18 pm

Pray tell, what is a climate denier? Are there people that deny that climate exists? Is there an overlap with flat earthers? Or are they just regular old Leftists and Democrats?

Dave
July 8, 2020 7:26 pm

This is the facebook customer service number. Please share it.

1-866-380-3888

I is as good a place as any to complain about their censorship of Shellenberger and legitimate climate skepticism.

July 8, 2020 7:43 pm

Compare the credentials of those who signed the April 10th, 2012 letter to NASA’s Administrator Charlie Bolden to those signing the letter to Facebook!
Google “NASA 49” & scroll down 5th and seventh from the top.

Q.E.D.

July 8, 2020 7:44 pm

They’re starting to get scared. The media is losing control of the “master” narrative on multiple fronts: climate change, the pandemic, and the “civil” disturbances.

markl
July 8, 2020 7:50 pm

If we don’t start fighting against this crap soon it will be too late. If you are on FB unsubscribe. Talk up dropping out of FB to everyone. Political social media is a pox. Do your part.

July 8, 2020 7:56 pm

Isn’t John Podesta the guy who chaired the Hilarity Campaign when he got phished, allegedly, and gave the phisher his password, which was “password” allegedly?

This turnip then had a Ukraine-connected company called Crowdstrike allegedly “investigate” the DNC servers. They allegedly issued a report which neither the DOJ nor FBI have ever seen, allegedly, that blamed Russia for the “hack”, which was a phish (or possibly an inside job with a memory stick). Nor have the DOJ or FBI had access to the DNC servers which are in the bottom of the sea now, allegedly.

And then allegedly 17 US Deep State spook agencies confirmed that there were “Russian fingerprints” on the phish, although computer code doesn’t have fingerprints, being digital, and can be copied bit for bit by any computer expert, including those who work at the 17 Deep State spook agencies.

Please note that John “My Password Is Password” Podesta is not some huckleberry computer illiterate but a former White House Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton, Counselor to Barack Obama, Chair of the Center for American Progress, as well as chairman of Hideous Hilarity’s 2016 presidential campaign, so he knows the drill re computer security better than most.

Now he wants to Big Brother censor/cancel “climate deniers” for their “deadly” misinformation, which is ironic because John “My Password Is Password” is a modern day Machiavelli and the Crown Prince of mis- and disinformation. I consider this dude to be Evil with a capital “E”. Not many deserve the special place in H311 that Big John has earned.

Reply to  Mike Dubrasich
July 8, 2020 8:11 pm

Podesta understands political power and that the path to that power is through a majority of left-leaning white Americans who are completely ignorant of how the media manipulates them.

aussiecol
July 8, 2020 8:18 pm

Has this come about since Michael Shellenberger’s revelation?? If so probably explains their desperation.

Jeff
July 8, 2020 8:22 pm

I was censored by FB thought police for posting your reprint of Shellenbergers forbes article . I was reprimanded by non other than the likes of jake hausfather and jennifer francis for my impudence . I think the climate industrial complex are infuriated when their own turn on them ; like michael moore and shellenberger have .

michel
July 8, 2020 8:29 pm

In other news it seems there is a site called WUWT on WordPress, which hosts posts from these vile climate deniers, and has large numbers of comments expressing the same dangerous views.

For the sake of civilization, humanity, the children, WordPress must put a stop to this. it is really dangerous, merely mentioning such ideas can bring civilization on Earth to an end.

People, you see, seek out such ideas, and then its like Covid, its infectious, once one person finds them, it just spreads, and before you know where you are they are leaving their appliances in standby and eating less peanut butter and living in California driving a big Ford, and the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

Craig from Oz
July 8, 2020 8:29 pm

Left eating themselves, again.

I find all of this bemusing. I understand some of the US MSM are trying to guilt shame advertisers into not using Facebook, something that strongly suggests that the MSM do not understand the real world.

Advertisers pay because they believe they are getting an audience. If a third party destroys that audience then by forcing them elsewhere, then not only does the audience just move, then so does the advertisers.

Facebook, if anything, should be desperately bending the knee to the conservative half of the market because if they move on you are left with the Woke. And the Woke only spend other people’s money.

Personally I was only using FB for to stay in touch with a couple of private groups. When China’s Economic Warfare kicked in earlier in the year talking with these groups became moot and my need to access FB directly vanished.

I don’t miss it.

John Robertson
July 8, 2020 8:31 pm

Seems we had these people running unchecked once or twice before.
Witch hunter,was the old title.
Absolute certainty combined with complete ignorance.
Such lovely people always seem to lust for power over everyone else and reserve their most vile hatred for those who recognize them and mock them.
If voters are really so dumbed down that they cannot be trusted,by these very same “experts”,then there must be something very wrong with the “public education system” pushed by these very same “helpers”..

For those who advocate for silencing contrary speech,insist that this must be done to avoid confusing the citizens..
They are openly stating how stupid they believe the tax paying citizens are.

Legends in their own minds,they Know they are the smartest creatures every to walk this earth.
That humility taught by The University of Hard Knocks, has never blessed their lives.

Recurring theme here,their ideas are unacceptable to the majority of voters,they cannot convince anyone outside their cult and cult members are turning away.
So do they come up with better ideas?
Better arguments?
Do they make any attempt to understand their opponents point of view,thus to better present a coherent argument?

Hell no.
They want to forbid freedom of speech to all who disagree with them..
Funnily enough,every time they get that power,those they “disagree with” soon encompasses,everyone else.

Banishment from civil society is a very fitting punishment for those who persist in gnawing at the foundations of civilization.
Freedom to have an opinion and state said opinion is fundamental to having civil society.
For without the soft option of verbal discourse all you have is violent remedies.

Chris Hanley
July 8, 2020 9:19 pm

Wise words:
“But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error”.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm

Richard (the cynical one)
July 8, 2020 9:32 pm

For us Canadians, seeing the name Gerald Butts as a signatory says it all. He is ‘former’ chief of staff to the shallow Prime Minister because he had to resign in disgrace for being caught pressuring the then Attorney General to break the law, on behalf of his boss. If the other signatories carry equivalent baggage that would fit the climatistas perfectly.

Robber
July 8, 2020 9:42 pm

In China, Facebook was blocked following the July 2009 Ürümqi riots because Xinjiang independence activists were using Facebook as part of their communications network. As of October 2019, many domain names are blocked in mainland China under the country’s Internet censorship policy, which prevents users from accessing certain websites from within the country.
“Until Facebook takes a stand, climate deniers will continue to exploit your platform to sow discord and put the world’s health and security at dire risk.”
Perhaps they would like to send a letter to President Xi Jinping – he seems to be good at banning things.

July 8, 2020 10:50 pm

These videos have been peer-reviewed, and I still can’t boost them on Facebook.”

On what planet are there suddenly peer review processes for VIDEOS?

MarkW
Reply to  davidmhoffer
July 9, 2020 8:11 am

She showed them to her friends, and they like them.

Global Cooling
July 8, 2020 11:11 pm

Just repeating the meme: “climate disinformation”.

Please go deeper, explain. What do you mean by misinformation? Ban satellite data, data of sea level rise, CO2 correlation to temperatures, correlation of emissions to CO2 in atmosphere, effectiveness of the proposed policies?

Robert of Ottawa
July 8, 2020 11:35 pm

I see Gerald Butts, de facto Prime Minister of Canada, is a signatory, Now we know why resource development in Canada has been halted (if we didn’t already).

Jan Christoffersen
Reply to  Robert of Ottawa
July 9, 2020 8:21 am

Robert,

That would be Gerald “Machiavelli” Butts, a truly cynical and evil force of destructive disunity in Canada. His fingerprints are all over federal anti-oil bills C-48 and C-69.

Vincent Causey
July 9, 2020 12:46 am

Who controls the “fact checkers” controls the narrative. In a democracy, the POTUS should appoint the fact checkers. (Just kidding).

George Lawson
July 9, 2020 1:28 am

What gets me is that these idiots are talking all the time about the ‘lies’ of the sceptics, yet they never state what those lies are, or are prepared to argue their corner on the points that they say are lies. Facebook should invite the committee to list the ‘lies’ about which they complain, and conduct a true democratic debate on the subject, allowing sceptics to reply to their complaints without Facebook taking sides and bowing down to the lies that the die hard believers always propagate in order to get their points heard.

Reply to  George Lawson
July 9, 2020 6:11 am

+ 100%

jono1066
July 9, 2020 2:47 am

Signed by :- Abbie Dillen, Earthjustice President

I want 2 (or is it 3) words like as my job title , at least it lets people know what sort of power and control want
I don’t think “One who has rights over everyone and everything would go down too well even if the 2 are synonymous.

July 9, 2020 3:02 am

Just came across this on Facebook. Worth watching.

https://www.facebook.com/nadeem.jackson.9/videos/10222477500516485/

kribaez
Reply to  JeffC
July 10, 2020 2:49 am

Thank you.

Megs
Reply to  kribaez
July 10, 2020 6:19 am

How beautiful kribaez, it made me cry. I’m not on Facebook but I’ll be sharing the link!

Megs
Reply to  JeffC
July 10, 2020 6:22 am

Sorry JeffC, I got so caught up I thanked the wrong person. I shall pass the link to as many as I can.

Michael Ozanne
July 9, 2020 3:47 am

Facebook should scrap it’s censorship board, limit content intervention to incitement to actual violence and criminal content. and refer these gobshytes to Pressdram vs Arkell

Ed Zuiderwijk
July 9, 2020 4:38 am

‘As environmental leaders ….’

Should read ‘as self-appointed environmental leaders ..’ (whatever that may mean; What precisely do they lead? And where do they lead it?.)

Tom Gelsthorpe
July 9, 2020 4:45 am

Next Facebook policy you might expect: “Ducks are forbidden to quack. A bird who can’t warble, SHUT UP!”

(In the meantime, Steyer et alia keep quacking.)

July 9, 2020 5:00 am

The list looks like the Demrat Party Propaganda Committee which views the issue as a money maker and it presents them to the masses who pay little attention as saviors of the environment….why saving the planet – it doesn’t get any better than that.

Bruce Cobb
July 9, 2020 6:22 am

They have the MSM, the schools, “science” organizations, and most governments in their pocket, but that still isn’t enough. Because the internet is (or was) still free (mostly). So, the Warmunists want Facebook and other social media to become their Pravda. They need to stamp out Truth wherever it may raise its ugly head.

MarkW
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
July 9, 2020 8:14 am

They have a vision of a perfect world.
The fact that they haven’t been able to implement this utopia just proves that they don’t have enough power.
Once they control everything, and eliminate everyone who opposes them, then the world will magically transform into a world in which nobody has to work and everyone has everything that they want.

Eamon Butler
July 9, 2020 6:42 am

I’m not against the open discussion and debate of issues. If something is fake/false information, let it stand up to scrutiny, and let everyone see it tested in full open public debate. Let those who promote it, defend it as best as they can.
Quite frankly, as far as I can see, all the misinformation, comes from the likes of the above signatories. I don’t call for their silence or that they should be locked up. Not even in FB gaol. But, if they can’t stand their ground, then their case is very weak.

Quilter
July 9, 2020 6:48 am

Dont panic, Jeff Alberts. I am sure the higher power Willem mentioned was that great big nuclear reactor out there we call the sun!

Earthling2
Reply to  Quilter
July 9, 2020 8:24 am

Or if we want to really yank Jeff’s chain, we could say the higher power is the Son. No pun intended…But I don’t really subscribe to all that that very much. Science is the only game in town, and everything else is philosophy and some of very good, which is great, but it shouldn’t be taken literally. But that is only my humble opinion and everyone should have the right to believe what they want, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the rights of others. Freedom of speech and thought (the First Amendment) is all we have at the end of the day, that separates us from tyranny and a flourishing civilization. That is now at risk with all this cultural Marxism, which has to stamped out before it catches fire and the whole place goes up in smoke.

John Endicott
Reply to  Earthling2
July 9, 2020 8:56 am

Or if we want to really yank Jeff’s chain, we could say the higher power is the Son

That reminded me of the Star Trek episode Bread and Circuses. When Mr. Spock expresses how it seems illogical for a sun-worshiping cult to be preaching universal brotherhood (as sun-worshipping is usually a primitive superstition), Lt. Uhura, having been monitoring the planet’s communications remarks that Spock has it all wrong as “It’s not the sun up in the sky. It’s the Son of God.”

MarkW
Reply to  John Endicott
July 9, 2020 9:43 am

It may have been the same episode, but there is one episode when the actor who is playing one of the Greek gods declares that he wants the crew of the Enterprise to worship them. Kirk responds by saying that they have no need for gods. Then as he turns away he says, “Our one is enough for us.”

In most of the re-runs, in the interest of making more time for commercials, the tag line has been deleted.

John Endicott
Reply to  MarkW
July 14, 2020 5:14 am

That would be the Greek god Apollo in the episode “who mourns for adonais”.

Earthling2
Reply to  MarkW
July 14, 2020 11:02 am

The writing on the original Star Trek series was outstanding. I still record a few episodes every Monday night on one of the SCIFI channels. They didn’t even have a big budget for the Set, but they still produced some great material. The show had a moral message. Too bad they didn’t get 7 years in instead of less than 3 when they cancelled one of the best TV shows of all time.

tom0mason
July 9, 2020 6:48 am

You see in today’s propaganda wars, truth is a meaningless concept to the likes of Facebook,YouTube, twitter, etc. Only opinions matter!
On the topic of climate the censors at Facebook etc., espouse the belief that only MODELLED science, i.e. computer generated faux science offering ‘existential’ threats to all life on the planet, is worthy science.
Like Twitter censors, Google’s YouTube censors, Facebook censors instinctively know that consensus science of unreal and outrageous (computer modelled) theories always trump mere scientific observations to the contrary. In this upside-down cyber world where censors are misnamed ‘fact checkers’, in an attempt to give them an air of authority despite their obvious bias.

Popular social media’s reason d’etre for being is not to allow the free and open flow of knowledge and ideas but is all about methods of controlling ideas and perceptions of truth via censoring and public scorn.
As Adolf Schicklgruber explained in his seminal work ‘Mein Kampf’ for two (tedious) chapters, propaganda is a tool —

Ever since I have been scrutinizing political events, I have taken a tremendous interest in propagandist activity. I saw that the Socialist-Marxist organizations mastered and applied this instrument with astounding skill.

and

The second really decisive question was this: To whom should propaganda be addressed? To the scientifically trained intelligentsia or to the less educated masses?
It must be addressed always and exclusively to the masses.
What the intelligentsia – or those who today unfortunately often go by that name – what they need is not propaganda but scientific instruction. The content of propaganda is not science any more than the object represented in a poster is art. The art of the poster lies in the designer’s ability to attract the attention of the crowd by form and color.

A similar situation prevails with what we today call propaganda.
The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses’ attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision. The whole art consists in doing this so skillfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc.

(from Volume One – A Reckoning Chapter VI: War Propaganda) And it is reference to this very book and its ideas about how to lie convincingly and influence mass populations, that has helped to define the way these ‘social media’ companies, and many other transnational companies operate.

Anonymoose
July 9, 2020 6:49 am

“with the most vulnerable communities most at risk.”

That’s part of the definition of the vulnerable communities.

Wayne Milligan
July 9, 2020 7:07 am

Not surprising to see Gerald Butts among the signatories in this attempt to censor climate skeptics on FB. Butts is Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s BFF, Svengali and former Principal Secretary. He resigned from the latter posting amid the SNC Lavalin scandal when he was found to have exerted undue influence on the Justice Minister to benefit a corrupt Quebec corporation. He’s a real piece of work whose green economic policies have weakened the Ontario and Canadian economies.

Joey
July 9, 2020 7:27 am

These clowns better be careful because if they are truly concerned about “climate lies”, they themselves would be forever banned from Facebok.

MarkW
July 9, 2020 7:57 am

The left does win debates, they just ban anyone who disagrees with them.

Tom Abbott
July 9, 2020 10:06 am

From the article: “As a global climate leader, you know that climate change is not opinion. It is fact. And it is actively killing humans across the globe.”

Talk about “allowing misinformation to spread”. That’s just what these Alarmist clowns are doing.

The facts are: There is no evidence for Human-caused Climate Change. Human-caused climate change is unsubstantiated speculation, and since it hasn’t even been established to exist, there is also no evidence that Human-caused climate change is actively killing humans across the globe. These are all just blatant lies.

Demand evidence from these Alarmist fools if you want to shut them up, because they can’t give you any evidence. So they will either shut up, or try to change the subject. Around here, they just shut up, because they know changing the subject won’t do them any good with the argument.

leowaj
July 9, 2020 10:12 am

Climate doom metastasizes into orthodoxy; adherents swear by the orthodox; radicalization ensues; adherents become militant.

July 9, 2020 10:16 am

Not sure why Katharine Hayhoe is so upset. She certainly knows how to use intimidation and the block key quite nicely.
https://imgur.com/a/LnSE8Wq

Walt D.
July 9, 2020 1:38 pm

Does burning books cause Global Warming?

TomRude
July 9, 2020 5:56 pm

And Gerald Butts the unofficial PM of Canada is a signatory…