After pledging to stop climate misinformation, Facebook suspends many environmental accounts

September 29, 2020

Several environmental organizations, such as Greenpeace USA, Rainforest Action Network and others, had their Facebook accounts recently suspended.

The suspensions came less than a week after Facebook launched a push to stop misinformation over climate change and blocked affected organizations from sending messages and posting.

Hundreds of individual accounts linked to climate and social justice groups were also suspended for an “intellectual property rights violation,” according to activists.

Those suspended were all involved in a Facebook event in 2019 that targeted KKR & Co., a US investment firm, which is supporting the Coastal GasLink pipeline being built in Canada.

The suspensions came a day prior to another online action that was aimed at KKR & Co. and just days after Facebook said it was starting a “climate science information center” to stop widely shared but misleading posts that reject the established science of the climate crisis.

In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said, “Our systems mistakenly removed these accounts and content. They have since been restored and we’ve lifted any limits imposed on identified profiles.”

Several of the accounts have now been restored, but some are still blocked, with no additional explanation coming from the social media giant.

“Actions speak louder than words and once again Facebook has taken actions that are in stark contrast to public statements from the company,” said Elizabeth Jardim, senior corporate campaigner at Greenpeace USA. “The recent bans targeting people fighting to save their communities from climate change and the continued exploitation of fossil fuel companies show us that when push comes to shove, Facebook will side with polluters at the cost of their users’ trying to organize.”

After pledging to stop climate misinformation, Facebook suspends many environmental accounts

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