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Climate scientists flee Twitter [to Mastodon] as hostility surges (www.france24.com)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/technology

139 comments fedilink hide all child comments

EDIT: I didn't notice in the original post, the article is from 2023

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/19707239

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".

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[–] gcheliotis -2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

When I still used Twitter, I followed people and that was the only content I wanted to read. I didn't care about content from people I wasn't following.

That's why I'm now on Masto. No algorithm to decide that I should also get the very much not valuable opinions of xXx_nOnwoke_1488 in my timeline.

[–] suction 0 points 3 months ago

“Both sides”.