False claims about the climate crisis – like that climate change is a hoax – are spreading rapidly across social media. But big tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google are still resisting the call from politicians and the public to constrain their power to shape the public narrative on everything from climate change to elections to popular music.
Unchecked climate disinformation threatens our ability to understand, let alone fight the climate crisis. Which is why it’s a good thing that the House Judiciary Committee has advanced legislation to constrain the monopolistic powers of Big Tech companies. If passed and signed into law by President Biden, these bills will help bring choice and control back to consumers and stop the oversized influence these companies have on our economy, our politics, and our daily lives.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg already admitted to Congress that climate misinformation is “a big issue.” But Facebook and other Big Tech companies are still keeping all the details a secret – from how many misleading posts are shared, to whether they allow ‘opinions’ that climate change isn’t real, or isn’t urgent, to slip past their fact checkers. The only way to be sure we’re reducing misinformation on social media is to break up the big tech companies and reduce their power.
That’s what these bills are designed to start on. These bills aren’t perfect, but they’re a helpful step in the right direction and progressive groups will be working to strengthen them as they move through Congress. But we can all agree that it’s far past time to pass legislation that curtails the power of Big Tech – and we can agree that won’t happen without overwhelming grassroots support.
We need your help to center the experiences of women, Black, Indigenous, and people of color, LGBTQ+, and front-line and fence-line communities of all kinds in the fight for choice and consumer protections. Big Tech has dictated our lives for far too long, dividing communities and promoting racist, misogynistic, transphobic, and homophobic voices.