Facebook has been waging war on climate science lately. The Guardian reported that over this weekend, hundreds of social justice, indigenous, and climate groups had their accounts suspended apparently to disrupt a virtual protest against the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline in British Columbia.
Facebook has suspended the accounts of several environmental organizations less than a week after launching an initiative it said would counter a tide of misinformation over climate science on the platform.
Groups such as Greenpeace USA, Climate Hawks Vote and Rainforest Action Network were among those blocked from posting or sending messages on Facebook over the weekend. Activists say hundreds of other individual accounts linked to indigenous, climate and social justice groups were also suspended for an alleged “intellectual property rights violation”.
The suspended people and groups were all involved in a Facebook event from May last year that targeted KKR & Co, a US investment firm that is backing the Coastal GasLink pipeline, a 670km-long gas development being built in northern British Columbia, Canada.
The suspensions, the day before another online action aimed at KKR & Co, has enraged activists who oppose the pipeline for its climate impact and for cutting through the land of the Wetʼsuwetʼen, a First Nations people.
“Videos of extreme violence, alt-right views and calls for violence by militias in Kenosha, Wisconsin, are allowed to persist on Facebook,” said Delee Nikal, a Wet’suwet’en community member. “Yet we are banned and receive threats for permanent removal, for posting an online petition.”
Many of the accounts have now been restored, but a handful are still blocked, with no fuller explanation coming from Facebook.
As I have mentioned in other diaries, my climate diaries are banned on Facebook and only my climate diaries. It’s one thing to block a political blogger, such as myself, but these actions by the media giant are the most recent attempt to silence climate science, activists, scientists, and then spread climate disinformation with impunity. This is no coincidence.
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