By Andy May
Facebook’s censorship is totally out of hand, and their “independent and nonpartisan fact checks” are anything but. Now they are censoring “Climate: The Movie.” The supposed “fact checks” provided by Science Feedback and Climate Feedback (they are two branches of the same organization) have been shown many times to be both partisan and ideologically driven. The “fact check” of Steve Koonin’s bestselling book Unsettled done by Climate Feedback was blisteringly criticized by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in a lead editorial by the WSJ editorial staff.
The editorial includes the following:
“Mr. Koonin, whose careful book draws extensively on existing scholarship, may respond on the merits in a different forum. Suffice it to say here that many of the ‘fact check’ claims relied on by Facebook don’t contradict the underlying material, but instead argue with its perceived implications.
The fact-check attacks Mr. Koonin’s book for saying the “net economic impact of human-induced climate change will be minimal through at least the end of this century.” Minimal is in the eyes of the beholder, but the U.S. National Climate Assessment predicted America’s climate costs in 2090 at about $500 billion per year—a fraction of the recent Covid stimulus in an economy that could be four times as large.
The fact-check on the statement that ‘global crop yields are rising, not falling’ retorts that ‘while global crop yields are rising, this does not constitute evidence that climate change is not adversely affecting agriculture.’ OK, but that’s an argument, not a fact-check. …
Climate Feedback’s comment on a line from the review about ‘the number and severity of droughts’ does not identify any falsehood, but instead claims, “it doesn’t really make sense to make blanket statements regarding overall global drought trends.’ Maybe it doesn’t make sense for Facebook to restrict the reach of legitimate scientific argument and competing interpretations of data.”
WSJ, May 7, 2021.
Steve Koonin’s rebuttals of the Climate Feedback post are here and here. I’ve also written about the erroneous Climate Feedback post here.
In other words, fact checks should check facts, not a difference of opinion between two scientists. “Fact checks” today are too often thinly disguised and very biased editorials, often confusing very left-wing interpretations of ambiguous data with facts. Then these supposedly “independent and nonpartisan fact checks” are used by Facebook, and sometimes by Linkedin, as excuses to censor legitimate and well-documented posts and movies. Documentation and references of the facts and interpretations presented in Climate: The Movie can be found here.
Further reading on the blatant bias and misinformation found the Science Feedback and Climate Feedback websites:
- Climate Feedback’s fraudulent and misleading fact check of a famous and well-respected peer-reviewed article by Ronan Connolly, Willie Soon, and 21 well qualified co-authors is refuted here.
- Climate feedback also gets a fact check of the CO2 Coalition completely wrong, as described here.
- Finally in their fact check of Gregory Wrightstone of the CO2 Coalition they make 13 wildly incorrect (lies?) about Wrightstone, as described here.
In summary, the Science Feedback and Climate Feedback website are both unreliable and misleading. Why Facebook and Linkedin put their trust in such a biased organization is unknown, unless they are also pushing an ideologically biased narrative.
Their overly long (4,700 words!!) critique of Climate: The Movie is fully debunked in my annotated bibliography of the main points made in the movie, but I can hit the main points here.
The first clearly false claim is that recent climate change is being driven by CO2 exclusively with no input since 1750AD from changes in the Sun or nature at large. This is an unsupported claim by the IPCC (AR6, p 5) that is frequently disputed in the peer reviewed literature [For example: (Soon, Implications of the Secondary Role of Carbon Dioxide and Methane Forcing in Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future, 2007), (Davidson, Stephenson, & Turasie, 2016), (Koutsoyiannis, Onof, Kundzewicz, & Christofides, 2023), and (Liu, et al., 2014)].
Second, there are very serious and well-documented problems with current measurements of global warming at Earth’s surface. These problems are discussed in the movie. Science Feedback attempts, in far too many words to be believable, that the measurements are accurate. The problems are all well documented in the peer-reviewed literature [For example: (Connolly, et al., 2023) and (Soon, et al., 2023)].
Third, the movie explains that temperatures today are within the normal range of temperatures seen in Earth’s recent and longer-term history and they are not unusual or unprecedented. This fact is very well documented in the peer reviewed literature [ (Kaufman & Broadman, 2023) and (Scotese, Song, Mills, & Meer, 2021)]. The Science Feedback critique first complains about this statement and then later agrees with it.
Then they go on to say that “warming trends” are unusual over the instrumental era (past 140 years or so) compared to ancient temperature trends, based upon uncertain climate proxies. The climate proxies used in the latest IPCC report (AR6) have a median temporal resolution (time between temperatures) of 164 years (Kaufman, McKay, & Routson, 2020). So how can they know whether the proxy trends are more or less than today? See here and here for the details. Also see this excellent post by Renee Hannon on the impact of comparing daily thermometer readings to climate proxies.
They make many other incorrect and misleading claims. They claim there is no evidence that polar bear populations are increasing, they are (Crockford, 2022). They claim that the Great Barrier Reef has not recently reached a record size, when it has according to Peter Ridd and the Australian Institute of Marine Science.
They make many other claims that statements from the movie are misleading, including claims that the IPCC/CMIP climate models are accurate, but the IPCC itself admits they are flawed:
“Hence, we assess with medium confidence that CMIP5 and CMIP6 models continue to overestimate observed warming in the upper tropical troposphere over the 1979–2014 period by at least 0.1°C per decade, in part because of an overestimate of the tropical SST trend pattern over this period.“
(AR6 WGI, page 444).
In short, the Science Feedback post is clearly incorrect in its claims that the movie is misleading. Science Feedback looks at the same data and facts that the movie examines and draws different conclusions than the eminent scientists in the movie. They have a different opinion than the experts in the movie. That does not mean the scientists in the movie are factually incorrect. Look at the data yourself, support for all 70 serious scientific claims made in the movie can be found here for those that want to see more.
Download the bibliography here.
Mark Zuckerberg using Climate Feedback is rather like Bill Clinton taking rides on Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane—indicative of who they are and what they do.
As Facebook is actually promoting opinions as more valid than other opinions…
and not just clarifying if some facts as more justified than other facts…
it is publishing, not distributing, information.
Publishers are legally responsible for their content. Someone should take Facebook to court over everything it publishes that is harmful.
I know that in the USA freedom of speech is very broadly defended in law but you are still not allowed to publish hate, and a few other things.
Yet the existence of Facebook Factcheck means it is publishing, and responsible, for EVERYTHING it hosts.
FarceBook hides behind the “independent” “fact-checkers” to justify they are not publishers.
YouTube has a habit of adding admonishing statements to videos that contradict “settled science”, notably on climate change. It tries to get around this by claiming it is just giving “context” but that it does not endorse the “context” it is giving.
“the non-partisan International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) or European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN)”
I wonder where they get their money?
Fact checking is like Peer Review since crossing Clinton’s Bridge to the 21st Century. It is a rigged and incestuous system. All the mechanism were put into place to politically propagandize science.
There is no there there. What is worse it is used to fool the malleable minds of mush and as Twain observed: “It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” As a result facts get buried by feelings.
“There’s no there there”
“what your definition of is is”
Similarly facts depend on what the meaning of your words mean. Climate can be either ‘regional weather pattern’ or ‘global average’…
Wikipedia :
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region…
NASA :
Climate refers to the long-term regional or even global average of temperature, humidity, and rainfall patterns over seasons, years, or decades.
https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/what-is-climate-change/
Now they are censoring “Climate: The Movie.” : This is really bad, but not unexpected.
I have also been totally banned on Facebook with my site and wonder why the most traffic for the page is from Brussels, with 413 against USA 126 and Norway 122. There is a special interest for Hydrino and the new renewables in the EU Parliament in Brussels.
“There is a special interest for Hydrino and the new renewables in the EU Parliament in Brussels.”
The EU parliament is well known for falling for any scam out there and backing idiotic non-science.. !
I choose to censor Facebook myself. Never joined, not going to, and I use a Facebook container that keeps them out of my browser. They provide no services that I want and their business plan is pure hubris.
My daughter posts pictures of my grandchildren on her private Facebook page. This is the only contact I have with it.
That’s it’s original purpose, and all it’s good for.
> My daughter posts pictures of my grandchildren on her private Facebook page.
Umm, no. They aren’t private and certainly not immune to hacking. With the current level of facial recognition even the original purpose has been subverted.
The only reason I have Facebook is because all my texting contacts are on Facebook Messenger, …I believe you have to have Facebook to use FB Messenger ??
I occasionally buy and sell stuff on there, but that’s about it. But I surely would not trust it for any kind of news or other informative content!
Likewise, I evaluated this new Facebook things for a few weeks after its debut, decided I did not want to fool around in youngster-space and declined to participate. Ditto all other “social media”.
I am waiting for several adults who should know better to withdraw.
Besides, people who announce innovation or invention are likely to get cancelled rapidly. I believe I was the first scientist permanently locked out of “The Conversation”, for linking to a published paper, so far as I can recall. Censorship is a concept alien to me. Social media uses it as a weapon, I am told. What fun! Geoff S
Facebook doesn’t know what they’re doing. I recently posted on how to report email scams to the host for the web site and the email host using Spamcop, and my comment was flagged for a moderator to review. It was never resolved.
“Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind’s made up.”
Could easily have originated with Facebook, but didn’t.
Facebook misleads at the very basic levels.
For example, “Friends” there should correctly be called “Pen Pals”.
“Friends” are the people who will tell you directly and in no uncertain terms when you’re acting like a dick.
And you don’t “Block” them.
This stuff is all they got left. Reality is biting harder and harder.
“it doesn’t really make sense to make blanket statements regarding overall global drought trends,” and by exactly the same reasoning, “it doesn’t really make sense to make blanket statements regarding overall global temperature trends.”
Artificial intelligence at work? Like a black George Washington?
The truth will out – over their dead bodies.
Oops, I was 8 minutes behind you.
Such a depraved culture cannot survive the glare of the truth.
One would hope. However, I’m getting cynical in my old age.
It is long past due to repeal or modify Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which was enacted in order to provide protection for social media platforms from liability related to what users post. The law was enacted so that such platforms could act as a “public square” open to all. Facebook, Google, etc. violate that condition by censoring free speech. Examples of this are numerous, including not only the ones discussed in this article but YouTube banning certain Covid videos that questioned government actions, the Twitter files that influenced a general election, etc.
Section 230 should be amended to protect the container from toxic content but not from curated content of any type. Once curated, the container owns the responsibility.
Facebook fact checkers are so bad that I assume if they say something is right it is more likely wrong. If they claim something is wrong it is most likely right.
Just to clarify, the film is not being actively removed from Facebook, they’re just providing additional context or counter viewpoints? I don’t think you know what censorship is. Science is about debate, and it seems that you don’t want anyone challenging your little movie. Not very scientific.
They have not provided ANY counter evidence… just their usual mantra BS. !
What’s in it for you that you continue to support this scam, AJ ??
Of course your are WRONG AlanJ, as would be expected of YOU.
Read the content at the beginning of this post under the big red WRONG!
The last complete face$hit comment mentions gradual silencing of the poster’s posts. you know, censorship.
And it is not just “providing additional context or counter viewpoints”, they are calling it FALSE, without specifying that they have no factual justification for doing so and they claim it is “false” because they have a different viewpoint. Their opposing viewpoint being a truly falsifiable viewpoint.
The terms of service Andy May willingly signed when he registered with Facebook, a private company, pretty clearly state that users found to repeatedly post false information might have their posts ranked lower than users who do not. This is not censorship, it is a private company enforcing its own user policy on its private platform. And, of course, as I said, the notice from Facebook says nowhere that the video is being removed, it is just being flagged with the independent fact check, which Andy May shouldn’t be afraid of people seeing unless he fears the video being exposed to scientific scrutiny.
So you, AlanJ are agreeing that the post is FALSE, when it is in no way false.
As I stated in my comment you just replied to:
So they have no right to downgrade anyone for posts that ARE NOT FALSE, even using your leftist illogic, thus your silly comment.
But again, AlanJ, totally expected of a leftist such as yourself.
I do think the film contains many falsehoods, but that does not matter, because the topic is whether Facebook is engaging in censorship by tagging the post with a fact check article, and I argue they are not.
Yes, of course, Facebook is a private business, and the Facebook news feed is part of their private platform. Users sign a terms of service agreement when they create an account, and that agreement pretty explicitly lays out the rules of the platform. Users who do not wish to comply with the rules of this private business are free to take their business to a different social media platform. Facebook, as a private business, has every right to enforce their terms of service on their own platform.
It kind of sounds like what you want is interference in private businesses, but I know that can’t be true, right? That’s not very pro-capitalism of you.
“post false information”
Which Andy May HAS NOT DONE. !
So yes, it is censorship of the FACTS… deliberate and woeful
Certainly, you will never expose anything to scientific scrutiny, you don’t have the capability.
Neither does “Climate Feedback.”
—
What’s in it for you, that you continue to support this climate scam, AJ ??
Interesting, so your perspective is that if the film is factually incorrect, then it would be fine and appropriate for Facebook to tag it with a fact check, and lower the visibility of posters who repeatedly share information rightly flagged as being factually inaccurate?
I think you’ll face a lot of pushback from your compatriots here on that take.
This is not censorship, it is a private company enforcing its own user policy on its private platform.
That argument could equally be applied to gmail should google adopt a similar policy. Would you be ok with that?
Google has terms of service for its platforms like gmail, and they do enforce them. If you don’t like the terms of service, you are free to use any other platform that has a user agreement you find acceptable.
Thanks for the clarification of your position AlanJ.
‘little’ movie? I cannot find a way of expressing my opinion about this choice of adjective that doesn’t have to be spoilt by appending ‘sarc’. Well done, then – ‘your little movie’ – it makes us all proud of your comment.
I would recommend the movie to everyone who wants to know the truth about CO2 and the Earth’s climate and weather.
Of course, radical leftists like those controlling Facebook, will oppose it. Scaremongering about CO2 is the road to political power for the left. Or so they think, so they are not going to give a free pass to something that contradicts their scaremongering.
Legislation is needed. We’ll see what the situation looks like after November 5.
“Climate Feedback” comprises many of the top-level climate scam/con-artists.
The only trust I have is they will continue to LIE and CON as their only method of argument.
It is utterly useless to even try to conduct a meaningful discussion with such ‘fact finder’ outfits. They are not interested in facts, they want to find witches.
Just call them what they are: imposters and charlatans, and leave it at that.
Fact Check: Facebook’s flagging of most posts for fact check violations are really seals of authenticity for wrongthink.
No one is so blind as the man who will not see.
Fakebook? I remember years ago being admonished by some Fakebook employees for not replying …..I just told ’em F Zuck and removed myself from Fakebook.
Thank you for the link to the article on proxy data resolution by Renee Hannon that clearly explains how proxy data ought to be treated graphically and how it can and has been misused to foster the hysteria.
Funny, that’s what the alarmists have been doing for years.
The sad fact is that Facebooks “Fact Checks” are so biased and egregious that they amount to a fraud perpetrated on Facebook users. If you encounter such “Fact Check” bypass it and go to the underlying subject of the post and view it.
“Third, the movie explains that temperatures today are within the normal range of temperatures seen in Earth’s recent and longer-term history and they are not unusual or unprecedented.”
I would say it’s more accurate that we really don’t know, since everything is boiled down into a “global temperature”, which is, of course, utter nonsense.
That, and the notion that proxies can tell us anything really meaningful, beyond vague notions.
PolitiFact is famous for “fact checking” things that aren’t facts—and always to the advantage of the same political party.
I don’t do Facebook. Is it any worse than Yahoo or MSN?
We (my wife and I) primarily use Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family, we otherwise wouldn’t keep in touch with, post funny videos & pictures of our dogs and post funny political memes.
Regarding Facebook’s politically motivated “censorship,” this meme pretty well sums it up:
Linkedin has become even worse, because it is ostensibly a professional networking resource. If I had $1 for every time a real scientist (like Andy May, Pat Frank, etc.) had a post censored because a ski instructor complained about it, I wouldn’t have to find oil & gas any more… But I would anyway because it’s fun and pisses off ski instructors… 😉
The recent Climate movie is awful, filled with science fiction and drive by character attacks.
Consensus climate science is repeatedly insulted by the fact that it is government funded, rather than refuting the science itself. The first 30 minutes tries to con(vince) viewers manmade CO2 emissions do nothing because temperature changes cause CO2 changes. That is ignoring added CO2 in the atmosphere as a climate forcing.
One serious logic error is using guesses of historical, local climates (climate proxy reconstructions) with NO manmade CO2 emissions, to make conclusions about the climate effects of manmade CO2 emissions.
Skeptical Science listed 25 myths in the film. I agree with more than half of them.
Because this film is so bad, the BEST news is that Facebook is censoring it. That fact, assuming it is true, is worth a lot more in the anti-CAGW debate than the film itself.
The film was an opportunity to:
(1) Explain lab spectroscopy of CO2
(2) Explain the controversial water vapor positive feedback theory that allegedly converts harmless AGW to potentially dangerous CAGW
(3) Evidence of manmade warming after 1975 versus less evidence of natural warming
(4) The experience of the past 48 years of actual global warming (a more pleasant winter climate in most nations and greening of our planet)
(5) Most important is detailing the 44 years in a row of wrong CAGW predictions
In my opinion, the film struck out for all of those five important subjects.
Especially when it tried to convince viewers CO2 does nothing and quoted climate science idiot John Clauser saying exactly that.
Richard Greene
(BS, MBA)
Bingham Farms, Michigan
…where we love global warming and our plants love more CO2
NOTE: Many years ago, probably 2016, I wrote a short comment at Skeptical Science, thinking it was a real climate science website the first day I found it. I wrote that we loved global warming here in Michigan and wanted a lot more warming.
Within an hour that comment was deleted and I was banned from making further comments at Skeptical Science.
That’s when I realized CAGW could not be falsified with facts, data and logic, because no debate was allowed.
CAGW is a religion based on faith in long term climate predictions … that have never been right.
I like the “Rural” temperature chart, in the movie. It shows it is not any warmer today than it was in the past even though there is more CO2 in the air today, than in the past, which means CO2 is a minor player in the Earth’s atmosphere. Pop! goes the CAGW claims!
I can see why you don’t like the movie, seeing how invested you are in the concept that CO2 is a major player in the Earth’s atmosphere.
” the concept that CO2 is a major player “
Does “major” a well-defined technical meaning?
With regard to CO2, there are no well-defined terms with regard to its interaction with the Earth’s atmosphere. I think it has very little effect, since I don’t see any effects of CO2 after all these years, whereas Richard believes CO2 is responsible for most of the warmth we are experiencing today.
Does that help?
” the concept that CO2 is a major player “
Does “major” a well-defined technical meaning?
Comment says:”That is ignoring added CO2 in the atmosphere as a climate forcing.”
Fact checked FALSE.
I am proud to say I have never used Facebook or Twitter and never will.
My original concern was the lack of privacy. The censorship problem, obvious since 2020, makes the decision even easier.
Do not support your enemies.
My daughter made me sign up for a Facebook account recently.
The feed I see there is old classic cars, animals being nice to each other, a few UFO sightings (no fact-checks by Facebook here), lawn mowing and yard work, half-naked females, and the best feeds are those where a guy dresses up to look like a bush or a small tree, and other prank scenarios, and they jump out at unsuspecting passersby and the passersby scream, and then they all laugh.
Look at all you are missing by not having a Facebook account!
I don’t get my science information from Facebook. I don’t think I have ever seen a feed about climate change on my Facebook page.
FarceBook has Fact Chokers,
not fact Checkers
Fact checking (pandemic/climate) became all the rage with the lay/amateur/volunteer narrative enforcers every where in America. It’s unfortunate that I have repeatedly had to listen to them every where I go. They twist, lie and exaggerate with impunity. Dare to defy their self righteous authority.
Where did they learn how to do this?. Facebook the contagion of crap
My wife and I rejoined Farcebook only because our 50-year high school reunion leadership chose to communicate via the platform. Over a year has passed, and posts to the group have become boring repetition among a small group of classmates who haven’t given up on the “glory days” of youth.
The news feed, meanwhile, is increasingly full of obscene and/or obnoxious content suggestions.
We deleted our accounts. No regrets.
My exact experience as well. Facebook had to go. 2023 was my 50th year anniversary.
It’s the kids that are so locked into all the social medias…. it’s life to them not a good one.
Control the language, control the ideas.
They’re only thinking of your safety and wellbeing-
Police attempt to shut down National Conservatism event in Brussels (msn.com)
Story tip.
This makes me think of old TV shows such as “All in the Family”. The writers had Archie Bunker express a valid “conservative” view but then the writers gave him a stupid reason for having it.
(“Meathead” really was a meathead.)
Facebook can’t rewrite what is on it, but they can tac on an unchallengeable by the writer, “Move along. Nothing to see (or think about) here” message.
“Facebook knows better.”
PS “All in the Family” was funny. Lots of good jokes. But what it promoted was nothing to laugh about.
In 2021, a U.S. court ruled that F.B ”fact checkers” are merely opinion pieces.
https://mb.com.ph/2021/12/15/us-court-document-facebook-fact-checkers-are-merely-opinion-checkers/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3YiG_pspKQurtJAs9zRU_Nm5_4DiIVzGjB66KIjz75c44tS5yKHHHu_Bw_aem_AdVlqUFHaOB7aGvbPYg8m4WD2qw4J3C2ev_X7_G1-fexx17aADLpjNzzzEOac0F7kE3S7jY4hn_EdCaAIcXCB0hx#google_vignette