Democracy Dies in Darkness

Twitter bans climate change propaganda ads as deniers target platforms

The social media company says ads can’t contradict “scientific consensus” on the environmental crisis

Updated April 22, 2022 at 4:24 p.m. EDT|Published April 22, 2022 at 1:16 p.m. EDT
Twitter headquarters in San Francisco on April 21. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News)
3 min

Twitter is banning advertisements that promote climate change denial in an effort to curb the reach of groups seeking to downplay the extent of the environmental crisis.

Under the new policy, advertisements that contradict the “scientific consensus” on climate change will be prohibited along with other types of banned-ads such as campaigns that contain violence, profanity or personal attacks. Twitter will be relying on reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a unit within the United Nations, to inform its decisions about which advertisements break its rules, according to the company.