YouTube’s Climate Denier Money Machine
YouTube is the second largest source of revenue of parent Alphabet after the company’s Google search engine. In the most recently reported quarter, $8 billion of Alphabet’s $77 billion total came from the massive video site.
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For years, social media sites, a group in which YouTube is often included, have faced the issue of how they police content. Economically, excluding content of any kind undermines these sites’ ability to make money. Nevertheless, each social media company has pledged at some level to screen for items that include misinformation on issues from vaccine safety to election fraud, social extremism, bullying, exclusion, and comments on body image.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate has released a study titled ‘The New Climate Denial: major new report on YouTube uncovers the evolution of climate deniers’ tactics – as almost a third of teens believe global warming is “harmless,”’ The study was based on 12,058 climate-related YouTube videos posted by 96 channels between January 1, 2018, and September 30, 2023.
The authors of the report found that the arguments climate deniers use on YouTube are based on three factors–”climate solutions won’t work,” “climate science and the climate movement are unreliable,” and “The impacts of global warming are beneficial or harmless.” One effect of YouTube activity is that about a third of teenagers believe global warming is “harmless.”
Top Climate Denier
Several climate-denier sites have enough traffic to bring hundreds of thousands of dollars to their owners. According to the study, these include Jordan Peterson, who has 7.62 million subscribers. It is not unusual for one of his videos to have one million views. These videos carry advertising, and YouTube gets a percentage. This continues even after The Center for Countering DIgital Hate report.
YouTube makes money on advertising that runs on its site. That is the case, and it always has been. There is no reason to think this will change. Alphabet, first and foremost, is a business. Even though its motto continues to be “Do the right thing.”
