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”.

    • Siegfried@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      3 months ago

      Oh, i didnt know this was like IT. i’ll tell my russians friends just to ignore putin’s regime

      • Eximius@lemmy.worldEnglish
        26·
        3 months ago

        If by ignore, you mean stop paying taxes and working in any capacity for government in one go, yes would work. The only fear is being singled out, if more than 0.5% of the people do it, army wont even have the guts to get tanks out, they will join.

        • Siegfried@lemmy.worldEnglish
          14·
          3 months ago

          Touché

          Venezuela has ~70% of the people against the regime, (nearly 90% counting the 5M that were not allowed to vote) and the needle isn’t even moving.

          And in Russia being “singled out” is apparently a national tradition.

          Sorry, I may be over pessimistic today.

          • Eximius@lemmy.worldEnglish
            5·
            3 months ago

            I guess that’s a fair example. But logically sounds impossible for such control over the population to be had. If a group went out to the streets to oust the government, you would say at least maybe 45% would join.

      • tourist@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        3 months ago

        Pardon my ignorance. I may have a mild brain injury.

        Could you perhaps rephrase?

        I’m not sure if I understood what you said.

        • Siegfried@lemmy.worldEnglish
          7·
          3 months ago

          In IT (the movie and, i presume, also in the book) ::: spoiler spoiler The kids realize that IT feeds on attention and that the only way to fight it is by ignoring it :::

          Imo, shitter (X) is a cesspool as it is now, but I dont believe that leaving it to the hordes is a solution to anything. We need a better approach to deal with this people.

          • tourist@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            3 months ago

            Ah, that makes sense. I thought you meant IT as in information technology. Was very confused.

            Brain still good yey

            edit: typo. perhaps I need to make that appointment