Climate scientists flee Twitter as hostility surges
www.france24.com
Scientists suffering insults and mass-spam are abandoning Twitter for alternative social networks as hostile climate-change denialism surges on the platform following Elon Musk's takeover.

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”.

  • Eximius@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    There is the semi-usually-known research that suggests 3.5% is enough for non-violent protests to reach changes. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/chen15682

    0.5% is 1 in 200 people, essentially everyone knowing personally one person who is against the government. Maybe it isn’t enough.

    But also, 0.5% homogenously (instead of country-wide being concentrated in Moscow), would be 600k people peacefully marching in Moscow streets

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      3 months ago

      It doesn’t work. It’s some urban legend that this is sufficient. Even those 600k may or may not be stopped by a threat of real ammo being used. I’m not even talking about coordination.

      One can “prove” anything with selectively chosen statistics.

      • Eximius@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        They werent selectively chosen. " An original, aggregate data set of all known major nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006 is used to test these claims." As well as any researcher who isn’t a complete buffoon would only look at statistics that has only a 2-3 sigma chance of only being stochastic noise.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          3 months ago

          The set of indicators, of course, was selectively chosen. The authors, of course, have decided which of these they consider important and which don’t, that is, decided upon weights and criteria.

          • Eximius@lemmy.worldEnglish
            21·
            3 months ago

            That is complete unfounded fluff words. No paper would be published if it was biased and as selective as you say. Look at the paper at least briefly and we can discuss.

            I think you can download it here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240678278_Why_Civil_Resistance_Works_The_Strategic_Logic_of_Nonviolent_Conflict

            Of interest maybe would be the indicators of a campaigns success:

            The outcomes of these campaigns are identiªed as “success,” “limited success,” or “failure.” To be designated a “success,” the campaign must have met two criteria: (1) its stated objective occurred within a reasonable period of time (two years) from the end of the campaign; and (2) the campaign had to have a discernible effect on the outcome.40 A “limited success” occurs when a campaign obtained signiªcant concessions (e.g., limited autonomy, local power sharing, or a non-electoral leadership change in the case of dictatorship) although the stated objectives were not wholly achieved (i.e., territorial independence or regime change through free and fair elections).41 A campaign is coded a “failure” if it did not meet its objectives or did not obtain signiªcant concessions.42

            • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.worldEnglish
              12·
              3 months ago

              No paper would be published if it was biased and as selective as you say.

              That is incredibly naive of you and truly points to your lack of credibility.

              • Eximius@lemmy.worldEnglish
                21·
                3 months ago
                1. You completely disregarded the paper.
                2. Completely disregarded peer review as a thing without any grounding.
                3. Went ad hominem as a hail marry.

                Bye.

                • AlexanderTheDead@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  12·
                  3 months ago

                  Tell me more about how antivax scientists didn’t successfully publish a paper with tons of biases and nonsensical findings.

              • Eximius@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                3 months ago

                The goal posts were not moved at any point. It was a discussion of the situation, as it is.

                Please look at the paper you refer to: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)60175-4/abstract It was only retracted because of “In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were “consecutively referred” and that investigations were “approved” by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record.” It was retracted due to fraud. I don’t think it’s in any way wise to blame the possibility of fraud on the peer review process. Just as fraud can happen in any field because some people decide to pathologically lie.

                However, besides the fraudulent ethics, the paper is fine, and as always previously reiterated multiple times. All it says are a bunch of maybes. It makes no extraordinary claims, it holds no conclusive proof, just a lot of “this maybe hints to something”. The paper is publishable.

                The actual scandal was caused by the Wakefield lying profusely in media.

                These are two different things: what Wakefield said in media, and what Wakefield said in the paper. You should separate them.