Thread by @ChristineArena

NEW RESEARCH: @InfluenceMap @mmfa & @Tripl3check tracked fossil fuel communications activities surrounding Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The findings reveal a new, more threatening brand of climate disinformation. [thread] #ClimateDisinfoCell

2/ Bad actors are using Russia’s war and America’s pain at the pump to aggressively push false narratives and oil & gas expansion, according to the latest analysis from @InfluenceMap:
influencemap.org/pressrelease/U…

3/ The primary sources of bad information include a handful of trade associations and corporations. In particular, the American Petroleum Institute embarked upon an aggressive lobbying and advertising effort via its astroturf arm, Energy Citizens.

4/ Between 1/26-4/1, API’s Energy Citizens ran 761 ads on Facebook. Although the ads contain messages that failed AFP fact checks, they were seen over 23 million times during that time-period.

5/ By comparison, in the final three months of 2021, API’s Energy Citizens page created just 67 ads referencing energy/national security or energy independence, which were seen 6 million times.

6/ @mmfa reveals an echo chamber of right-wing media outlets and pundits that worked in tandem to spread similar false narratives – attacking renewable energy and framing the fossil fuel industry as a victim of circumstance.

7/ Top false narratives have shifted from climate denial to culture war. The current breed links energy independence with more fossil fuels, while blaming rising gas prices on renewables, Biden policies, liberalism, climate activism, the Green New Deal & the woke.

8/ False narratives aren’t only sparked by trade associations, news orgs and pundits. The @InfluenceMap analysis calls out CEOs of major energy companies who are echoing the same false information. influencemap.org/report/US-Oil-…

9/ The week after the invasion, Ryan Lance of Conoco Phillips blamed rising gas prices on “the rapid push in renewable energy and a maligning of the fossil fuel industry.”

10/ Chevron’s Mike Wirth blamed efficiency standards: “The pursuit of ‘ever cleaner’ energy has compromised affordability and reliability.”

11/ API’s Mike Sommers pointed to Biden: “the White House stifling production amid a slew of red tape, a renewable energy push and the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline.”

12/ These narratives failed AFP fact checks: factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.32…. But according to @tripl3check, 10 million people were exposed to them on Twitter during a single week in March.

13/ Propaganda speech is also escalating, with rhetoric such as “woke mind virus,” “ideological cartel,” “shrill hyperbole” and “hate factory” emanating from prominent antagonists of climate and #ESG goals.
dailycaller.com/2022/04/08/pet…

14/ Escalating propaganda now enmeshes with false narratives, as well as with familiar climate delay frames, creating a more toxic and viral end result.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

15/ That brings us to the issues of volume and spread. @mmfa and @tripl3check reveal that the spikes in activity are not random. They directly correlate with political events. This is an organized effort:

16/ So increasingly toxic content is being strategically amplified in order to protect the fossil fuel status quo. But how are people responding to it? And how are social media platforms managing the surge?

17/ According to @mmfa, the top 100 misinformation posts on Facebook garnered over 5mm likes, comments and shares during Feb-March 2022. Only one was flagged by Facebook as potentially misleading. ONE.

18/ Facebook has a poor track record on misinformation and hate speech overall, with 13,500 policy violations documented in the past year alone:
mediamatters.org/facebook/hate-…

19/ On Twitter, @tripl3check detected super-spreader bot activity. More than 70% of climate misinformation retweets come from bot like accounts, while 20% originate from bot like accounts.

20/ This finding raises serious questions: Who is funding and deploying these bot accounts? What is Twitter doing to shut these accounts down?

21/ While it’s a start, Twitter’s climate disinformation policy does not address the problems illustrated above. Its scorecard screens for a type of climate denial that barely exists today. (cc @BarackObama)
nexusmedianews.com/top_story/twit…

22/ Counter strategies are moving slow, while climate disinformation is moving fast. Consider the fact that on 2/23, the day before Putin invaded Ukraine, API’s war messaging campaign went into full swing (*strange timing): nytimes.com/2022/02/26/cli…

23/ By 3/16, the Biden administration had approved more LNG exports to Europe. By 3/25, it had committed to supply an additional 15 billion cubic meters.

It took about 4 weeks to execute a public policy heist:
politico.com/news/2022/03/2…

24/ Much attention has been paid to the fossil fuel industry’s demonstrable history of denying climate science. But the kind of climate disinformation proliferating today is much more insidious and dangerous.

25/ Today’s climate disinformation is more threatening because:

• The quality is more deceptive & toxic
• The quantity is greater
• The spread is faster
• The desired results happen sooner

26/ Climate disinformation at this level is no longer about information, science or even politics. It’s psychological warfare.

27/ The purpose of this warfare is not merely to market products or maintain an industry’s social license to operate. The purpose is to warp perceptions and seize or maintain power by force.

28/ We need to understand that this is not normal marketing communications activity. We left the realm of traditional crisis PR, reputation management and grassroots advocacy a long time ago.

29/ The people who understand this best should be leading the counter response, and that response must directly engage the companies providing the platforms.

30/ @Twitter and @Facebook must be pressed for swifter and more meaningful action – including more effective bot policing and fact checking, as well as stricter ad rules, better early detection of malicious activities and bad actors, and more.

31/ We must also continue to expose and pressure the PR & ad firms aiding and abetting the fossil fuel industry in this dirty work. The war-related talking points, astroturf & lobbying efforts, media tours, media buying strategies and ads did not produce themselves.

32/ Finally, we must execute and scale counter communications that inoculate the public. It is no longer enough to detect and analyze climate disinformation. Now, we must actively work to disarm it.

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