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Comment by jaspax | Hacker News Reader

I find the article to be disingenuous to the extreme, and indicative of the current trend of calling all politically disfavoured speech as "misinformation". They denounce the ad, but fail to actually note a single factual error or misleading claim beyond the broad statement that they presented fossils fuels as necessary for a quality of life and part of a green lifestyle. Yet surely if that's not true, then it should be trivial to point out the factual error, right? But they don't, they don't even bother, and at the time I'm writing this, the link to the actual report is a 404.

I'm not carrying water for Exxon and would like us to move to sustainable energy, but by the same measure I'm sick of being told that something is "misinformation" with no justification given other than the fact that it was put forth by unpopular person or organisation.

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Perhaps the guardian can point out scalable sustainable ways to create billions of car tyres per year, corrosion resistant plastics for underground pipes and sea cables, sustainable scalable replacements for the cosmetics industry, and then call this misinformation.

Until then it’s basically them spreading misinformation about what quality of life without fossils is like.

This is such a gray and difficult area this propaganda pretending to be journalism is ridiculous.

So reporting about problems that don't have obvious solutions is misinformation?

They’re not pointing out problems. They’re saying pointing out the other side of difficult problems is misinformation.

At that point unless you can factually prove your accusations you are basically slandering.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

isn't there kind of a huge difference, regarding climate change, with using fossil fuels for plastics, etc, and burning them for energy?

Like - plastics (particularly in the ocean) do present a massive issue, but they're dwarfed by the problem that is C02 and climate change?

Yes. Even if we pump up all remaining oil and turn it into plastic, the CO2 impact will be negligible, because the carbon will remain captured in the (non-degrading) plastics.

From the article: “Some of the most significant tactics found included tying the use of oil and gas to maintaining a high quality of life”

This doesn’t say anything about plastics vs using oil as fuel. When you’re making big accusations about misinformation you should probably be clear and accurate in your journalism

> create billions of car tyres per year, corrosion resistant plastics for underground pipes and sea cables, sustainable scalable replacements for the cosmetics industry ...

Textbook example of climate misinformation. People are talking about not using fossil fuels. Nobody's talking about banning tires or lotions. (Well, I mean, nobody who's being taken seriously. I'm sure you'll find a few village idiots wanting to go back to wooden chariots, if you look hard enough.)

As I said above:

From the article: “Some of the most significant tactics found included tying the use of oil and gas to maintaining a high quality of life”

This doesn’t say anything about plastics vs using oil as fuel.

When you’re making big accusations about misinformation you should probably be clear and accurate in your journalism

And your so-called-quality of life comes with the price of extinguishing any future above ground for our grandchildren, mass extinctions, and a whole lot of low quality of life for the vast majority of humanity.

We MUST prioritize R&D for precisely the things you mention, but the onus is on industry to adapt, not stymie necessary conversations and necessary change.

Get on board

Those industries buy themselves a clean environment-friendly image

A recent example I found is Formula1 planning to be "carbon-free" by 2030 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51226066, but carbon-offsetting is something very discussable, and they wouldn't account for their fans carbon cost which represent 8 times theirs (a solution could be no spectators, and at this point they could avoid travelling around the planet which would save from almost all their pollution)

To be fair, I'm not especially against those producers, I think the ones that need to act responsibly are consumers and their elected governments. Consumption decrease → demand decrease → production will adjust accordingly

I disagree. The guardian article reports that according to some US senators, facebook permits ads that contain 'demonstrably false claims'. However, most of the article is about misinformation that is actually more subtle than having false claims.

It seems you mistake misinformation for false claims. They are not the same. Misinformation is a truth claim that has the intention to deceive in order to further an agenda. It's doesn't even have to be false!

For example, Shell used to push really hard that it 'planted 5 million trees' and invests in renewables in the Netherlands. The intention was clearly prop up a reputation as a green company. But actually, that investment is not even a blip on the radar compared to their continued investments in fossil fuels, including exploring new sources in the arctic, which is completely incompatible with the Paris agreement. This is pure greenwashing and rightly called misinformation, even which there isn't a single false truth claim.

Your post, on the other hand, has a couple of false claims, but it clearly isn't misinformation. Unless it's really good and you have me fooled.

By the way, the 404 isn't really the guardians fault, InfluenceMap seems to have (re)moved the report.

So saying facts, that they planted 5 million trees, is “misinformation” because they also pump a lot of oil?

Not that there ever was a definition of misinformation but wtf is your definition? And how the hell do you objectively decide what is misinformation if facts can be that?

And how is Facebook supposed to measure what facts are actually misinformation by your standards? Should they build an AI that is able to recognise that because shell pumps a lot of oil they shouldnt be able to run ads about planting 5m trees?

Do you realise what you are advocating for?

I'd argue that greenwashing is, indeed, misinformation. That is, it is misleading to categorize a company like Shell as an eco-friendly one.

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/transport-travel/what-greenw...

I'm not sure what we can do about it, exactly. Facebook's product is clearly one that facilitates the manipulation of targeted individuals with misinformation, as is also seen with anti-vaxxers and the "Trump won" crowd.

In my opinion, the missing ingredient is a trusted and wise editorial function. I agree with you: I doubt we want an AI to do that.

I've clearly defined the term misinformation, it's in my post please read it again.

I don't realize what I'm advocating for because I'm not advocating for anything. I'm just pointing out that misinformation is different from stating false facts, which isn't very controversial.

Also, greenwashing exists. It's a thing, I'm not making it up.

The adverts probably don't contain any "facts" that can be easily disproved. Broad statements like "fossil gas can be green" are what you will find, but it's propaganda none the less.

By that standard, the Guardian article itself is propaganda because it insinuates malfeasance without making any specifically refutable claims.

And that's probably true. Almost all news is propaganda.

Does the phrase: the public interest, mean anything to you?

One profiteers externality is all of humanities shared future.

There is no planet B, and if we can’t take reasonable care of our home planet, we can’t be trusted with others.

I blame capitalism for incentivizing bad behavior and calling collective damage an externality

Is it really their job to restate something that has been proven for decades? Two entire generation have grown into adulthood with the truth about climate change being known, but for some reason, somehow, you're still calling opposition to fact "politically disfavored" when usually you would call that not factual, or misinformation at the least, and at worst disinformation, or otherwise deliberately misleading information. I'm sure a lot of facts in the world people don't like. That doesn't make it any less misinformation.

I don't know why you think that they need to restate what you should already know, and also seemingly already know because you state that you agree with it.

By not playing that game, to try to justify it further when there is no need, they're showing that it is indeed misinformation.

That climate change is real is proven and has long been proven. But they didn't claim that an oil company disputed that.

I 100% support green initiatives, but I had an argument with someone in Bay Area that basically boiled down to whether I should exist or not - because existence itself is waste of energy and warming up the planet. I wish I was joking.

Self-hatred, or general misanthropy, seems to be a strong element of the modern "environmental"/anti-energy-use movement.

It’s anger turned inward. That anger should be directed at the mentality and behavior killing planet earth.

To the degree that you impede solutions to climate change, you deserve some of that anger

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