Bulk of social media content supports climate change research

The majority of content and commentary being shared on social media supports the scientific consensus on climate change, according to new research from the Oxford Internet Institute. The findings are welcome relief from growing concern around the polarisation of the climate change debate. Despite broad consensus among scientists that climate change is both occurring and caused by human activity, the populist campaign expressing scepticism on the validity of the scientific consensus shows no signs of movement in their beliefs. As the Internet and social media has become a key source of news and information, it also has become a prominent arena where misinformation and efforts to distort climate change discourse may be taking place. Researchers working on the Computational Propaganda Project , at the Oxford Internet Institute, are investigating the kind of content on climate change that is spread on Twitter and Facebook. 'We were surprised to see that the majority of content and commentary being shared actually supports the scientific consensus on climate change. Very little commentary or content in mainstream conversation seems to belong to active climate sceptics,' says Ana Grouverman, lead author on the report.