Climate change conspiracies are spreading rapidly during UN's COP26 event
CBSN
Conspiracy theories that promote climate-change skepticism and denial spread rapidly across the internet ahead of the United Nation's ongoing COP26 Climate Change summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
Amplified by bots and influencers, a large volume of climate change denial content spread on social media starting in June, according to researchers at Blackbird.AI. The technology firm's platform uses machine-learning algorithms to scan millions of posts across mainstream social networks — including Twitter, Telegram, fringe sites and others — and, aided by human analysts, identified four major climate denial trends targeting U.S. and European climate-change policy.
Much of that content used mechanisms that were also effective in amplifying COVID-19 disinformation and vaccine hesitancy, said Blackbird.AI CEO Wasim Khaled.
Authorities made two gruesome discoveries Tuesday after a Missouri woman walked into a police station and told officers that she fatally shot one of her children and drowned the other, officials said. Jefferson County Sheriff Dave Marshak said at a news conference that authorities believe both children were killed Tuesday morning.
Strong storms with damaging winds and baseball-sized hail pummeled Texas on Tuesday, leaving more than one million businesses and homes without power as much of the U.S. recovered from severe weather, including tornadoes, that killed at least 24 people in seven states during the Memorial Day holiday weekend.