Climate scientists flee Twitter as hostility surges
www.france24.com
Scientists suffering insults and mass-spam are abandoning Twitter for alternative social networks as hostile climate-change denialism surges on the platform following Elon Musk's takeover.

EDIT: I didn’t notice in the original post, the article is from 2023

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/19707239

Researchers have documented an explosion of hate and misinformation on Twitter since the Tesla billionaire took over in October 2022 – and now experts say communicating about climate science on the social network on which many of them rely is getting harder.

Policies aimed at curbing the deadly effects of climate change are accelerating, prompting a rise in what experts identify as organised resistance by opponents of climate reform.

Peter Gleick, a climate and water specialist with nearly 99,000 followers, announced on May 21 he would no longer post on the platform because it was amplifying racism and sexism.

While he is accustomed to “offensive, personal, ad hominem attacks, up to and including direct physical threats”, he told AFP, “in the past few months, since the takeover and changes at Twitter, the amount, vituperativeness, and intensity of abuse has skyrocketed”.

  • demesisx@infosec.pubEnglish
    58·
    3 months ago

    I agree with this assessment for the most part but one side of me plays devil’s advocate on this:

    I sort of came to realize in the end that it was possibly purchased to push all leftists off the platform, allowing Musk to compete with Google and Facebook in heavily manipulating and censoring discourse in American society (and let’s be clear, they did. Just because it was an attempt to help “the good guys in the DNC” by Google and Facebook doesn’t make it not an open and shut case of treasonous manipulation of discourse.

    As an absolutely prolific Twitter user pre-2016, I was very quick to leave….but at the same time, I eventually came to the sad conclusion that Xitter (pronounced Shitter) actually does need leftist voices as long as it exists. IMO, it (and Google and Facebook) should be dissolved, open sourced, decentralized, and socialized for the crime of treason/undermining democracy.

    We (people of the fediverse with a strong sense of integrity) basically fled to our own decentralized, open source platform where we have 1 millionth of the reach with our voices. Being around such a cesspool where astroturfers working for Progressive think tanks and their conservative buddies would gaslight me about the popularity of things like Single Payer or student loan reform…which was not great for my well-being…But let’s not pretend that leftists that remain on the platform are bad people for doing so. An echo chamber has a way of brainwashing people. So, conservatism would be even stronger had more of our brethren not stayed.

    Just a small counterpoint. I strongly dislike conservatism and the conservative ethos of “fuck you, got mine”…but perhaps they were playing 4D chess with us a bit.

        • Traister101@lemmy.todayEnglish
          18·
          3 months ago

          Everyone from the lemmy.blahaj.zone instance that I’ve interacted with or seen have been trolls. Those guys are super weirdos idk what their deal is. It’s baffling seeing what they claim to stand for

          • harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            16·
            3 months ago

            I thought they were supposed to be a pro-trans, inclusive community but I’m thinking it’s mostly just astro-terfing trolls. Kinda like ml or lemmygrad or beehaw aren’t really leftists, just pro-authoritarian incoherent apologist edgelords.

            It’s like they’re not even trying to interact with good faith.

              • harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                2·
                3 months ago

                Well, beehaw is kinda like ml but less hinged at times. I don’t block instances, only users and communities. Some of beehaws communities are quite good and friendly. The politics ones…well, I don’t see those anymore.

                Sometimes it feels like there grownups in there who grasp nuance and empathy and at other times it feels like it’s full of ex-4channers who think they’ve grown up.