Scientists suffering insults and mass-spam are abandoning Twitter for alternative social networks as hostile climate-change denialism surges on the platform following Elon Musk's takeover.
EDIT: I didn't notice in the original post, the article is from 2023
Researchers have documented an explosion of hate and misinformation on Twitter since the Tesla billionaire took over in October 2022 -- and now experts say communicating about climate science on the social network on which many of them rely is getting harder.
Policies aimed at curbing the deadly effects of climate change are accelerating, prompting a rise in what experts identify as organised resistance by opponents of climate reform.
Peter Gleick, a climate and water specialist with nearly 99,000 followers, announced on May 21 he would no longer post on the platform because it was amplifying racism and sexism.
While he is accustomed to "offensive, personal, ad hominem attacks, up to and including direct physical threats", he told AFP, "in the past few months, since the takeover and changes at Twitter, the amount, vituperativeness, and intensity of abuse has skyrocketed".
I have no clue why all these normal, non-racist non-political people still use twitter. It was bought for the obvious purpose of providing a safe space for conservatives, racists, incels, and other outcasts to society. Mastodon is a perfect replacement for it, and you can pick an instance that suits you. It isn't owned by a mentally unstable billionaire!
We should as a community ensure Twitter\X lives forever..
If only as a place to keep certain social media users “entertained”
In all seriousness it does concern me how often I see such a wide variety of news agencies quote Twitter considering the amount of hate that goes on there
The bit in the square brackets in the title was mine, because that's what I went into the article to look for. If you're on Mastodon and interested in that content:
Glaciologist Ruth Mottram had more than 10,000 followers on Twitter but left in February and joined an alternative scientists' forum powered by Mastodon -– a crowdfunded, decentralised grouping of social networks founded in 2016.
"It's really been a revelation in many ways. It's a much quieter and more thoughtful platform," she told AFP.
On Mastodon, "I haven't had any abuse at all or even people questioning climate change. I think we'd become far too used to it on Twitter... I had blocked loads of accounts over on the birdsite (Twitter)," she said.
I already accepted we’re already dead because oil & gas companies figured how to use doubt and false science to create a confusion among the general public (aided by the mass conservative Murdoch /Boloré media lol)…
It’s like tobacco companies in the 50s but we can’t afford so many years to wake the fuck up.
The Franklin Standards need to be on everyone’s radar. They don’t want your kids to learn about climate change.
Explain how and why Earth’s climate changes over time.
Climate changes continually at all time scales and Earth’s climate has never remained constant.
The Earth's climate has varied greatly between glacial advances and retreats that correlate with cyclical oscillations in Earth's orbit around the Sun (Milankovitch Cycles, precession).
In addition to being affected by the climate, the biosphere also has a significant effect on the climate, including self-regulation and resiliency (carbon-oxygen cycle, hydrological cycle).
Humans are just one of the many influences on Earth’s climate (urban heat island effect, wetland drainage, deforestation, agriculture).
Computer models of climate are simplified simulations of the real world, and make prognostications that are inherently uncertain.
Global weather forecast models (short term) and climate models (long term) are quite different in their design, their strengths, weaknesses, value, limitations, and uncertainties.
The wording is subtle, but you can see how they are attacking the idea of anthropogenic climate change. (There’s similar fuckery with evolution and some subtle anti-trans stuff.) Oil and gas companies have a lot of money and can afford a lot of propaganda. No states have adopted these standards yet - we think Florida and Texas will go first, then Oklahoma will follow. But this information warfare.
I am on Mastodon for 5 years now (fuck it is really 5 years since August 2019, what the hell) and just can't get into it. It just feels lonely over there. What am I doing wrong?
Tbh, I think it is the post statistics thing. It says "1 reply", then I click at ot and it has 4 replies and it ALWAYS says "0 favorites" even when 10 people comment how great that post was.
If we can't abandon Obvious Disaster Twitter we definitely can't abandon the obvious disaster that is everything we think of as normal that's driving civilization off a cliff.
The size of Twitter’s user base and its ubiquitous use by celebrities and the media gave the platform an air of legitimacy that is what Musk vaporized his billions to get. He obviously didn’t value the brand or the workforce.
We need that false sense of legitimacy to keep getting chipped away in the eyes of mainstream society.
I just wish there were a way to preserve these records in a format with enough longevity to survive until the next sapient species evolves after we destroy ourselves and the human habitability of the planet for a couple million years.
They could use the warning against indulging greed and willful ignorance, and we deserve to have others laughing at our species' expense through time. We inherited paradise just to set it on fire eyes wide open. It's an extremely low bar, but I hope the next global apex predator chooses to do better.
I think this is going to happen more and more. As the delta semi-morons continue to erode civilization we are just going to "take our ball and go home" so to speak. We can science, tech, and culture around them and they will eventually be left out in their echo chamber desert fighting each other over the last minions meme scraps.
Among the sad stories about climate scientists having to deal with misinformation and abuse on the regular, suddenly, a unicorn: a statement purportedly by Musk that I wholeheartedly agree with:
Musk wrote in January: "People on the right should see more 'left-wing' stuff and people on the left should see more 'right-wing' stuff. But you can just block it if you want to stay in an echo chamber."
Of course with the average Xitter post becoming ever more toxic, most people that have anything of value to add will probably leave sooner or later, whether lefties or righties or whatever.