Pinterest will remove false content about climate change

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Social networks in recent years have had to face the phenomenon of the spread of “fake news” related to different topics, from violence and political issues, to hoaxes about COVID-19. On this occasion, Pinterest  announced new measures to eliminate any type of false information related to climate change, becoming the first platform to decide to apply specific policies in relation to this issue.


The social network made the announcement official through its Email Data official blog , explaining that “it is important to ensure that users find ideas from reliable sources, beyond the type of inspiration they seek to discover on the platform, from how to cook and shop to how to build. a house and live a more sustainable life . ”

Pinterest, fake news and climate change
New policies regarding false information spread about climate change make Pinterest the first social network to directly address this issue head-on and apply specific guidelines to counter its reach, including conspiracy theories, in content and ads.

Within these policies can be found measures such as the removal of any content that denies the existence or effects of climate change, in addition to human influence on climate change. It will also eliminate all false or misleading content about solutions for climate change that are contrary to the established scientific consensus.

Likewise, it will censor content that distorts scientific data, even through omission or manipulation; publications that seek to sow doubts about the words of experts and climate science; and content that disseminates potentially harmful misleading and false data about public safety emergencies (natural disasters and extreme weather events).

“This bold move is an expansion of our broader misinformation guidelines, which we first developed in 2017 to address public health misinformation, and have since updated to address new and emerging issues,” said Chief Policy Officer Pinterest, Sarah Bromma. “The expanded climate misinformation policy is another step in Pinterest's journey to combat misinformation and create a safe space online ,” she added.

Pinterest vs. misinformation
Pinterest
Source: Pinterest



This is not the first time that Pinterest has established specific guidelines to combat misinformation on its platform. In 2016, the social network established measures to prohibit the dissemination of advertisements with culturally inappropriate costumes, considering that some people could classify them as offensive.

Subsequently, in 2017, Pinterest banned all content that spoke against vaccination and a year later, the platform stopped disseminating political ads.

In 2021, the platform also eliminated and prohibited the publication of advertisements that denigrated diversity in body types and that promoted weight loss under that premise.

“We always want to make sure that our policies are forward-looking, that we're not waiting until we're invaded by some type of harmful content and then we move. At that point, it's too late,” Bromma said.