TwitterTrails is a system focused on studying how rumors and memes spread online, but it can also track efforts by spammers to promote spam messages on Twitter. In one such case, which we observed recently, global warming denialists online misrepresented an article posted by NASA to claim that NASA’s article effectively denies the existence of global warming. TwitterTrails discovered their effort and identified 115 of these denialists. Here’s what happened:
On October 30th, 2015, NASA posted an article about a study showing that the amount of ice in the Antarctic ice sheet has increased overall. They tweeted about the article, summarizing it with: “Antarctica is overall accumulating ice, but parts have increased ice loss in last decades.”
Several news websites posted articles about the study which were widely shared on Twitter expressing overall skepticism about both the findings and their implications for global warming:
- What Antarctica’s Incredible “Growing” Icepack Really Means by National Geographic
- A controversial NASA study says Antarctica is gaining ice. Here’s why you should be skeptical by the Washington Post
- Is Antarctica Gaining or Losing Ice? Hint: Losing. by Slate
However, the link shared by far the most on Twitter a website called “The Real Strategy” which takes a very different spin on the NASA study:
NASA Debunked Global Warming Hoax in Study
You will not hear this on your mainstream “News” channels… A new study by NASA has proven that the global warming hoax is a myth, once and for all.
A study released by NASA on October 30 says that the amount of ice in the poles has increased steadily over the last several decades. What happened to Al Gore’s claim that the poles would be melted completely by this year? Obama was just filmed claiming that “Global Warming” is proven… How stupid are their audiences really? Has everyone been programmed to just accept what these liars tell them as gospel? This study proves that “Global Warming” is so bogus that the world is actually COOLING!
The story continues on to quote the NASA article at length to support its claim that climate change is a “hoax”. This story received widespread air time on Twitter; nearly 4,000 of the 8,700 tweets we collected in reference to the NASA article included a link to “The Real Strategy,” compared to just a few hundred links to other relevant articles (including NASA’s original).
So, does Twitter audience believe that NASA’s own study disproves global warming? Not quite.
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