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Digital Panicinside the circle
Confusion

The Business of Deception

2020-2022 By AVAAZ (based on research by)
A black and white illustration with 3 layers. At the top, there is an icon representing climate change and one representing the covid-19 pandemic. In the centre a mobile phone with Facebook and at the bottom a crowd of people.
Infographic by Tactical Tech, illustrated by La Loma, based on the studies, “Facebook's Climate of Deception: How Viral Misinformation Fuels the Climate Emergency” and “Left Behind: How Facebook is neglecting Europe's infodemic” both published by Avaaz in 2021, and the study "Online misinformation about climate change", 2020 by Kathie M. d'I. Treen, Hywel T. P. Williams and Saffron J. O'Neill published on WIREs Climate Change.

The spread of misinformation online is a growing problem — but how can it be fixed?

The online activism organisation Avaaz researched misinformation posted on Facebook about climate change and the Coronavirus pandemic. They found that pre-internet climate change denial techniques have moved online and that confusing information about the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe is consistently not taken down, despite it being flagged as misinformation. Algorithms that sort, amplify and tag information in a crisis can change the nature of the information we read and share. When platforms fail to moderate false content and don’t change the algorithms that are weighted toward attention, it can even change the course of a crisis.

A black and white illustration with 3 layers. At the top, there is an icon representing climate change and one representing the covid-19 pandemic. In the centre a mobile phone with Facebook and at the bottom a crowd of people.
An infographic showing the word „Moderation“ - How Facebook is neglecting Europe's infodemic, pointing to „Content without measures“, which looks at the breakdown per language for fact-checked posts still unlabelled and online. The most are in Italian, followed by French and Portuguese.
An infographic about Dissemination of misleading information. It shows 4 viral tactics to undermine effective climate action identified on Facebook: Deception, Deflection, Divison and Delay.
Infographic by Tactical Tech, illustrated by La Loma
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