CLIMATE OF MISINFORMATION: RANKING BIG TECH

The report evaluates Meta, TikTok, Twitter/X, YouTube, and Pinterest using a 21-point assessment system focused on policy content, transparency, advertising, privacy, and enforcement. Pinterest is identified as the industry leader, while Twitter/X is ranked lowest. The analysis highlights systemic failures across most platforms, including a lack of universal definitions for climate misinformation, poor enforcement of existing rules, and a failure to address greenwashing.

• Pinterest is the top-performing platform in the assessment, leading the industry in policies designed to mitigate climate misinformation, including the use of a comprehensive definition that covers climate denial, greenwashing, and misinformation regarding climate solutions and environmental disasters.
• Twitter/X is the lowest-ranked platform, receiving only one point due to a lack of clear climate misinformation policies, an absence of substantive public transparency mechanisms, and no evidence of effective policy enforcement following Elon Musk's acquisition.
• While Meta, TikTok, and YouTube have made commitments to address climate misinformation, independent research indicates that enforcement is lacking. Examples include a 2023 BBC investigation into TikTok's failure to remove climate denial content and 2022 research showing Facebook failed to flag at least half of climate misinformation content.
• Most platforms fail to address greenwashing in their content moderation or advertising policies, with Pinterest being the only platform to receive credit for incorporating greenwashing into its advertising policies.
• There is a widespread failure to enforce climate misinformation policies equitably across different languages. Although TikTok showed intent to do so, research from Media Matters found that Spanish-language climate disinformation spreads rapidly on the platform.
• All analyzed platforms lack transparency regarding how algorithmic changes impact the spread of climate misinformation, and only Pinterest tracks climate misinformation trends in its reporting.

APA

Climate Action Against Disinformation (2023). CLIMATE OF MISINFORMATION: RANKING BIG TECH. https://caad.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Climate-of-Misinformation.pdf

Chicago

Climate Action Against Disinformation. CLIMATE OF MISINFORMATION: RANKING BIG TECH. 2023. https://caad.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Climate-of-Misinformation.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Climate Action Against Disinformation |title=CLIMATE OF MISINFORMATION: RANKING BIG TECH |date=September 2023 |url=https://caad.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Climate-of-Misinformation.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{climateactionagainstdisinformation2023climate, author = {{Climate Action Against Disinformation}}, title = {{CLIMATE OF MISINFORMATION: RANKING BIG TECH}}, institution = {Climate Action Against Disinformation}, year = {2023}, month = sep, url = {https://caad.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Climate-of-Misinformation.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }