The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) released a new report on Tuesday detailing how little Facebook has done to mitigate the spread of climate change disinformation. The report, which you can read here, lists 10 outlets that account for 69% of Facebook users’ activity with climate change denial content, a majority of which Facebook failed to flag with fact-checking labels.

The CCDH looked at a sample of 6,983 articles from all 10 websites published between Oct. 12, 2020, and Oct. 11, 2021. The nonprofit found that just 8% of posts received a fact-checking label that redirects users to Facebook’s “Climate Science Information Center,” which the social media giant rolled out last September. Articles lacking such labels received far more engagement from users, which could explain why Facebook was reticent to use its own fact-checking resources.

According to the CCDH, “posts without information labels received an average of 4,322 interactions, compared to 485 for those with labels.” A majority of those interactions came from users engaging with links shared by Breitbart, the far-right disinformation publication once run by Steve Bannon.

The report calls out Breitbart’s partial owner, Robert Mercer, for having a vested interest in pushing climate change denial, noting that Mercer funds groups like the Heartland Institute and the Media Research Center, the latter of which also appears on the CCDH’s list of outlets pushing climate change disinformation on Facebook.

The CCDH names specific Breitbart writers guilty of pushing some of the most dangerous climate change denial pieces, like editor-in-chief John Nolte, who’s constantly churning out idiotic think pieces like “Scientists Prove Man-Made Global Warming Is a Hoax,” or “Climate Experts are 0-41 With Their Doomsday Predictions.” Nolte may be better known as the guy who thinks the left is forcing his fans to remain unvaccinated in an effort to “own” them by perpetuating a pandemic that’s killed millions.

Breitbart London’s executive editor, James Delingpole is also mentioned for his opinion pieces. Delingpole consistently asserts that there is no “climate emergency” and that climate change itself is a “hoax.” He already wrote a column denouncing COP26 as “stupid,” and claimed, within that piece and a series of tweets, that there is something “quintessentially Satanic” about world leaders fighting climate change in Glasgow. And yet columns like these frequently show up on Breitbart’s Facebook feed looking as legitimate as an op-ed from any established newspaper.

The CCDH calls for both Facebook and Google to “stop promoting and funding climate denial, start labeling it as misinformation, and stop giving the advantages of their enormous platform to lies and misinformation.” Facebook has yet to respond to this ask, though last month Google finally decided to stop serving up climate change denial ads. 

How do y’all think social media companies should handle disinformation? Sound off in the comments. And feel free to take our poll on whether you’re choosing to leave Facebook altogether.