Pinterest is banning misinformation about climate change, citing the need to supply trustworthy information to users.
On Wednesday, the company announced a new misinformation policy, which is specifically designed to keep out false and misleading claims about climate change from circulating on the social media platform
“Our new policy makes Pinterest the only major digital platform to have clearly defined guidelines against false or misleading climate change information, including conspiracy theories,” the company claims.
Under the new rules, Pinterest will now remove content “that denies the existence or impacts of climate change, the human influence on climate change, or that climate change is backed by scientific consensus.” This includes posts that misrepresent scientific data on climate change by cherry-picking data points.
In addition, “false or misleading content about climate change solutions that contradict well-established scientific consensus” is now banned.
The new policy also applies to ads on the platform. According to Pinterest, the ad guidelines now explicitly prohibit conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation about climate change.
“Pinterest believes in cultivating a space that’s trusted and truthful for those using our platform,” the company's Head of Policy, Sarah Bromma, said in the announcement. "The expanded climate misinformation policy is yet another step in Pinterest’s journey to combat misinformation and create a safe space online.”
The new policy also represents an expansion of Pinterest’s earlier efforts to stop misinformation about public health, which has included redirecting searches for vaccines to authoritative information from health experts. In Wednesday’s announcement, Pinterest noted searches for a “a greener life” were rising among users.
“People are regularly turning to Pinterest to find ideas to incorporate sustainability into their entire lifestyle as searches for ‘zero waste tips’ were 6X greater, ‘recycling clothes ideas’ were 4X higher, ‘recycled home decor’ increased by +95% and ‘zero waste lifestyle’ increased by +64% compared to last year,” the company said.
Other social media platforms have refrained from taking a hard line on climate change misinformation. Instead, Facebook and Twitter have tried to redirect users to authoritative sources on the topic, but some researchers say the efforts have failed to rein in climate change denialism on social media.