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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
She showed them to her friends, and they like them.
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?
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).
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.
Who controls the “fact checkers” controls the narrative. In a democracy, the POTUS should appoint the fact checkers. (Just kidding).
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.
+ 100%
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.
Just came across this on Facebook. Worth watching.
https://www.facebook.com/nadeem.jackson.9/videos/10222477500516485/
Thank you.
How beautiful kribaez, it made me cry. I’m not on Facebook but I’ll be sharing the link!
Sorry JeffC, I got so caught up I thanked the wrong person. I shall pass the link to as many as I can.
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
‘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?.)
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
Dont panic, Jeff Alberts. I am sure the higher power Willem mentioned was that great big nuclear reactor out there we call the sun!
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.
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.”
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.
That would be the Greek god Apollo in the episode “who mourns for adonais”.
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.
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 —
and
(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.
“with the most vulnerable communities most at risk.”
That’s part of the definition of the vulnerable communities.
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.
These clowns better be careful because if they are truly concerned about “climate lies”, they themselves would be forever banned from Facebok.
The left does win debates, they just ban anyone who disagrees with them.
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.