According to a report released on Tuesday, YouTube is generating millions of dollars annually from advertising on channels that propagate misleading information on climate change because content creators are employing new strategies to circumvent the social media platform’s policies in order to prevent misinformation.

Using artificial intelligence, the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) examined transcripts from 12,058 videos posted on 96 Alphabet Inc. YouTube channels over the previous six years. According to the research, the channels featured programming that challenges the scientific consensus on climate change, which holds that human activity is causing long-term changes in temperature and weather patterns.

The nonprofit organisation CCDH, which keeps an eye on hate speech on the internet, reported that its research on climate denial content indicates a trend away from the debunked assertions that greenhouse gases resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels are not the cause of global warming or that it does not occur. Google’s policy states that videos that make such claims are expressly prohibited from making money from YouTube advertisements.

Rather, the study discovered that 70% of the climate denial information on the channels examined in the previous year concentrated on disparaging climate solutions as impractical, presenting global warming as benign or advantageous, or discrediting climate science and the environmental movement. It is an increase from 35% just five years ago.

“A new front has opened up in this battle,” Imran Ahmed, chief executive of CCDH, said on a call with reporters. “The people that we’ve been looking at, they’ve gone from saying climate change isn’t happening to now saying, ‘Hey, climate change is happening but there is no hope. There are no solutions.'”

According to CCDH, YouTube receives up to $13.4 million annually from the adverts on the channels it examined for this analysis. According to the group, the AI model was designed with the ability to differentiate between accurate information and legitimate scepticism.

While defending its policies, YouTube refuted the report in a response.

“Debate or discussions of climate change topics, including around public policy or research, is allowed,” a YouTube spokesperson said. “However, when content crosses the line to climate change denial, we stop showing ads on those videos.”

In addition to urging YouTube to revise its policy regarding climate denial content, CCDH claimed the analysis might help the environmental movement more generally dispel incorrect claims about global warming.

(Adapted from Reuters.com)