A study published on Wednesday, August 15, in the peer-reviewed journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution shows that environmental and climate activists were highly likely to have left Twitter – now known as "X" – following Elon Musk's takeover of the social media platform. The team from Pomona University, California, compared two sets of users interested in politics: the first, made up of 458,000 Internet users who posted messages about the 2020 US presidential election, served as a control group; the second, comprising 380,000 accounts that posted several messages about climate change or biodiversity, was formed in October 2022, at the time of Twitter's takeover.
The research team then measured publications of these accounts in late 2022 and early 2023, to check which were still active based on the criterion of posting at least one tweet over a two-week period. "The proportion of active accounts decreased for both the 'environmental' and 'political' groups," the researchers note, "but a significantly larger proportion of users in the 'environmental' group ceased activity." In April, only 52.5% of accounts in the "environmental" group continued to post on the platform, compared with 79.4% of users in the "political" group. Both groups contained mainly American users.
<img src="https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/15/0/0/807/669/664/0/75/0/d40a5ed_1692082957985-9tgqticw.png" srcset=" https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/15/0/0/807/669/556/0/75/0/d40a5ed_1692082957985-9tgqticw.png 556w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/15/0/0/807/669/600/0/75/0/d40a5ed_1692082957985-9tgqticw.png 600w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/15/0/0/807/669/664/0/75/0/d40a5ed_1692082957985-9tgqticw.png 664w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/15/0/0/807/669/700/0/75/0/d40a5ed_1692082957985-9tgqticw.png 700w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/15/0/0/807/669/800/0/75/0/d40a5ed_1692082957985-9tgqticw.png 800w" sizes="(min-width: 1024px) 556px, 100vw" alt="Changes to the number of active " environmental"="" and="" "political"="" accounts="" over="" time.="" "="" width="100%" height="auto">
These findings "confirm initial disturbing information about the increase in the amount of misinformation and disinformation about climate change on Twitter," said the authors. Several recent studies have shown that the new moderation rules implemented by the platform make it a lot easier to spread misinformation – particularly climate-related misinformation.
Musk notably fired a large number of Twitter moderators after his takeover and reinstated the accounts of many far-right and conspiracy activists. While the multi-billionaire himself does not deny the reality of climate change, he has, on several occasions, put out dubious or false messages on its causes and consequences, notably on the role of agriculture in greenhouse gas emissions.
Under Musk, Twitter has also targeted certain environmental organizations. For example, the platform recently accused the European Climate Foundation of helping the NGO Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) to analyze data from the platform for a study showing the platform's responsibility in spreading hate messages. The social media platform has filed a complaint against CCDH, accusing it of damaging its reputation.
Since Musk took ownership of the platform, the entrepreneur has also monetized – at great expense to users – access to tools in widespread use around the world by researchers analyzing the content and distribution of messages on the platform. These new rules will make it extremely difficult to conduct new studies on the social media platform, particularly once this summer draws to a close.