Report shows one quarter of all tweets about climate change are produced by bots

[William Gayde]

The big picture: A study to be published soon by Brown University has found that Twitter bots have had a "substantial impact" in amplifying the messages of climate denialists. The researchers found about 25% of all tweets regarding the climate crisis came from bots with a large margin expressing an skeptical view as to its legitimacy.

The study undertaken by a team led by PhD candidate Thomas Marlow examined about 6.5 million tweets from the time frame surrounding President Trump's decision to exit the Paris Climate Accord. These tweets were categorized and then passed through a tool called "Botometer" to estimate whether they were produced by a human or a bot.

Marlow told The Guardian that he originally had the idea for the study after wondering "why there’s persistent levels of denial about something that the science is more or less settled on."

Everyone knows Twitter has a bot problem, but the prevalence as shown in this study is what had the authors worried. Bots were responsible for 38% of all tweets mentioning "fake science" and 28% of tweets about Exxon. When looking at tweets in support of science and climate activism, the authors found that just 5% of them were from bots.

Auto-generated content by itself isn't necessarily bad unless it reaches and influences many people. Although the authors couldn't definitively identify who was behind the bot accounts or how much influence they had, they did discover that many had tens of thousands of followers.

Accounts like these tend to follow each other and circulate false information in echo chambers. Regardless of topic, researchers have shown that people keep believing and spreading this misinformation due to their perception that there is a valid alternative opinion.

Stephan Lewandowsky, a co-author from the University of Bristol, adds that "the more denialist trolls are out there, the more likely people will think that there is a diversity of opinion and hence will weaken their support for climate science." It's unclear whether these bots have affected politicians into enacting or repealing any policies, but there is a growing concern that they are beginning to influence government officials.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/84124-report-shows-one-quarter-all-tweets-about-climate.html

 

[Puiu]

If you fall for such obvious trolling then you deserve your eventual fate... a life of being laught at by those around you.

 

[wiyosaya]

If you fall for such obvious trolling then you deserve your eventual fate... a life of being laught at by those around you.

Yes. Now we know where all climate change deniers get their science that they cannot back up.

Unapologeticly -

Unfortunately, though, since the current administration falls under that category, we have these situations in notable recent news-

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-change-warming-slowly-drying-up-colorado-river-water
https://news.trust.org/item/20200206182605-u5ru3/

But educate themselves with something like this https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/decoding-the-weather-machine
instead of saying, "I heard it on the internet even though I cannot back it up with valid scientific evidence" No way!

For our biblical climate change deniers - https://biblehub.com/amos/7-17.htm

If you are a Mitch McConnell follower who on the floor of the senate no less said "I don't believe in global warming because God said he would not smite the Earth again" Please show us where the bible says that God has said he would prevent humanity from smiting the Earth.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Did Bots produce the climate reports on Antarctica hitting 65 Degrees 2 weeks ago?

 

[psycros]

Guess what? You could take literally ANY issue and find a similar if not higher percentage of tweets being posted by bots. I thought this was pretty common knowledge by now, kind of like how the idea that humans are the primary cause of global warming has been utterly discredited.

 

[MasterMace]

You can change that to just 1 quarter of all tweets....

 

[Uncle Al]

Amazing .... science has produced computers, put a man on the moon, created the fastest aircraft ever flown, produced wonder drugs, made limb reattachment's and artificial intelligence and thousands to hundreds of thousands of other discoveries. We have trusted science for hundreds, if not thousands of years with very few doubts or disappointments.

And now one poorly educated president that hides everything about himself for fear of all knowing the truth can turn that upside down. You would think that by this point in time the human race would be a little bit smarter and know that the only "fake science and fake news" is being generated by the one and only "fake/fraud president" credited with over 15,000 lies in office ...... yes, he occupies the office and carries the title, but he will never command the respect.

 

[EClyde]

Climate change is a HOAX as far as it being caused by man. If it wasn't making money they would hand out badges to try an increase involvement

 

[Puiu]

Climate change is a HOAX as far as it being caused by man. If it wasn't making money they would hand out badges to try an increase involvement

clearly one of those bot accounts

 

[DjoCoeur]

If Canada in a few decades gets the climate of California... hell yeah, keep changing climate.

 

[Evernessince]

Guess what? You could take literally ANY issue and find a similar if not higher percentage of tweets being posted by bots. I thought this was pretty common knowledge by now, kind of like how the idea that humans are the primary cause of global warming has been utterly discredited.

Please provide a source to your claim that humans as the primary driver of global warming has been discredited. I can provide a link to NASA saying otherwise:

https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/

Of course, there are dozens of educational and research bodies supporting this data.

FYI, the article specifically states that only 5% of comments supporting climate change data were bots. Far more were spreading misinformation, like you are here.

Climate change is a HOAX as far as it being caused by man. If it wasn't making money they would hand out badges to try an increase involvement

I suggest you visit the link above.

 

[Nobina]

The thing is...I don't trust anyone.

 

[Skjorn]

Amazing .... science has produced computers, put a man on the moon, created the fastest aircraft ever flown, produced wonder drugs, made limb reattachment's and artificial intelligence and thousands to hundreds of thousands of other discoveries. We have trusted science for hundreds, if not thousands of years with very few doubts or disappointments.

And now one poorly educated president that hides everything about himself for fear of all knowing the truth can turn that upside down. You would think that by this point in time the human race would be a little bit smarter and know that the only "fake science and fake news" is being generated by the one and only "fake/fraud president" credited with over 15,000 lies in office ...... yes, he occupies the office and carries the title, but he will never command the respect.

Riiiight... Trump is a bot account... good one.... jfc...

 

[PEnnn]

Guess what? You could take literally ANY issue and find a similar if not higher percentage of tweets being posted by bots. I thought this was pretty common knowledge by now, kind of like how the idea that humans are the primary cause of global warming has been utterly discredited.

Guess what?? Those anti-science bots and the voices in your head are not authorities on anything, especially in "discrediting" things that have been established as facts.

Same thing applies to your beloved conspiracy theories Yotube channels that you seem to be addicted to.!

 

[EClyde]

clearly one of those bot accounts

The good bot! I am telling you truth. Wake up

 

[EClyde]

Please provide a source to your claim that humans as the primary driver of global warming has been discredited. I can provide a link to NASA saying otherwise:

https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/

Of course, there are dozens of educational and research bodies supporting this data.

FYI, the article specifically states that only 5% of comments supporting climate change data were bots. Far more were spreading misinformation, like you are here.




I suggest you visit the link above.

You should close all your tech accounts they do you no good

 

[pit1209]

You should close all your tech accounts they do you no good

Did you visit the link before posting that? I really cannot understand for the life of me how many people visit this site that consider themselves "enthusiast" in technology and have the audacity to deny this kind of scientifically proven facts with nothing but Facebook and Twitter posts to defend themselves, smh.

 

[Evernessince]

You should close all your tech accounts they do you no good

I'm not looking to do anything good for myself. I just want people to read up. I have zero stock in any green energy companies and I don't have a job building windmills. I didn't go as far as to deny climate change in my past but there was a time when I too definitely just did not care. I hope that more people realize that by helping the world, they help themselves.

 

[SixTymes]

Yes. Now we know where all climate change deniers get their science that they cannot back up.

Unapologeticly -

Unfortunately, though, since the current administration falls under that category, we have these situations in notable recent news-

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-change-warming-slowly-drying-up-colorado-river-water
https://news.trust.org/item/20200206182605-u5ru3/

But educate themselves with something like this https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/decoding-the-weather-machine
instead of saying, "I heard it on the internet even though I cannot back it up with valid scientific evidence" No way!

For our biblical climate change deniers - https://biblehub.com/amos/7-17.htm

If you are a Mitch McConnell follower who on the floor of the senate no less said "I don't believe in global warming because God said he would not smite the Earth again" Please show us where the bible says that God has said he would prevent humanity from smiting the Earth.

if you reverse everything you said, it would then make sense. currently, you follow bots and believe everything is negative. that said global warming is happening... YOU or anyone else are not going to change it. (for many reasons)

 

[Puiu]

The good bot! I am telling you truth. Wake up

Just like anti-vaxxers and flat-earthers also believe to be saying the "truth".

And 100% of the time I've gotten into an argument with them they failed basic logic and end up spouting fake info, misquotes, lies and other bs. When they realise their failure to create a solid argument, they ALL blame the government or some sort of organisation.

Bots all of them and unfortunately some are dangerous for those around them (for example I consider antivaxxers to be mass murderers of children)

 

[DaveBG]

It will be funny if there was a way where everyone of the climate change deniers/bot creators and so on were recorded and once the climate really starts heating up they will have to pay up the losses. I bet they would have been far far far less

 

[Ludak021]

Did Bots produce the climate reports on Antarctica hitting 65 Degrees 2 weeks ago?

No Sun did that. Don't give yourselves too much credit.

 

[koblongata]

Even if ice age is a cycle, ocean acidification by CO2 is real, crabs and such are soon going extinct, air pollution is also real, killing 7 million humans every year.

 

[PEnnn]

No Sun did that. Don't give yourselves too much credit.

So, you're saying..... the sun decided suddenly, and for no apparent reason and no recorded precedent, to raise the earth's temperature and start melting Antarctica (and cause record heat in Alaska and literally self-combust Australia)??? What an amazing global-wide coincidence!!!

 

[Evernessince]

So, you're saying..... the sun decided suddenly, and for no apparent reason and no recorded precedent, to raise the earth's temperature and start melting Antarctica (and cause record heat in Alaska and literally self-combust Australia)??? What an amazing global-wide coincidence!!!

They've also already studied the sun and it's impact. That's actually mentioned in the article I linked. Long story short, the sun is not responsible.