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”.

    • zeppo@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It got much, much worse a few years after that. I was amazed to see my first “conservative” on reddit.

    • NostraDavid@programming.dev
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      2 months ago

      I blame Digg for failing. It increased Reddit’s popularity too fast, which was a bad thing bringing too many people, fucking up the culture reddit had built (which wasn’t much, but it was ours).

      • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Oh man, in 2024 I never thought I’d see some Reddit oldhead still complaining about the eternal September following Digg’s fall…

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Oh, that’s when I first saw that place. Left surprised that there are still normal forums in the interwebs.