translated from Spanish: Facebook gets serious and launches climate change information center

Facebook launched an information center on climate science to promote reliable sources dealing with climate change, as the social network has received numerous criticisms for enabling the spread of false information in that regard.
The company said the project is based on its COVID-19 Information Center. In addition, last month he launched a similar tool for next November’s U.S. election.
The climate center will be developed in the US, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and eventually in other countries, the company said.
“The Climate Science Information Center has resources from the world’s leading climate organizations and a number of practical steps people can take during their daily lives to combat climate change,” he added.
Facebook has been criticized for allowing false information related to climate change to be published because, by the company’s own policy, opinion articles are exempt from passing the data verification filter.
In that sense, the company said it prioritized control of “fake news” that poses a direct threat, such as publications on false coronavirus cures or hate speech that incites violence.
Facebook Global Policy Manager Nick Clegg said the company will continue to make an exception with false climate change information published by politicians, even though they are often among the most popular and shared content in the app.
“No social network has tried to do so for the simple reason that political discourses are characterized by exaggerations, impartial use of statistics and excessive claims about one candidate’s virtues and the flaws of another,” Clegg said.
Facebook has not yet evaluated the effectiveness of its coronavirus information center in countering ‘fake news’ about the pandemic, although the head of this tool, Chris Cox, noted that 600 million people used it, which the company’s executives consider a success.
Finally, Facebook confirmed that its global operations will reach zero net carbon emissions and will be 100% sustained by renewable energy later this year.

Original source in Spanish