TikTok Announces Plan to Censor Climate Change Skeptics

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
Apr. 20, 2023

Chinese-owned TikTok on Wednesday unveiled a new "climate change misinformation policy" which will censor content from climate skeptics that "undermines well-established scientific consensus" or denies the "existence of climate change or the factors that contribute to it."

From TikTok:

Advancing our commitment to climate literacy

Trust and authenticity fuel the creativity of TikTok—and we believe we have an important role to play in empowering informed climate discussions on our platform. This week, we are introducing several initiatives that will help reduce harmful climate change misinformation while elevating authoritative information year-round.

On April 21, we will begin to ramp up enforcement of a new climate change misinformation policy which removes climate change misinformation that undermines well-established scientific consensus, such as content denying the existence of climate change or the factors that contribute to it. As we do for all misinformation policies, we will work with independent fact-checking partners when applying this policy to help assess the accuracy of content.

They're obviously just copying these policies straight from Google/YouTube.

As a Chinese company, TikTok is responding to "market incentives" -- which in this case is the US government threatening to ban them entirely.

Though China does sell America a ton of solar panels, TikTok's censorship policies for over a year now have been dictated first and foremost by a desire to please/placate the DC regime.

Interesting details in TikTok’s efforts not to get banned I found thanks to @ggreenwald’s latest. They’ve established a new US-based board that will handle “content moderation” that is headed by a former US Secret Service agent and will answer to the federal government (CFIUS) pic.twitter.com/4ZQ6gOWQ0j
— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) December 28, 2022

[Header image by Ivan Radic, CC BY 2.0]

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