Pinterest is implementing a brand new local weather misinformation coverage to fight any kind of content material that denies the existence or influence of local weather change, or spreads false details about pure disasters or excessive climate occasions.

The firm introduced its resolution on Wednesday as an enlargement of its neighborhood pointers on misinformation and disinformation.

Pinterest, a digital pinboard the place customers search for inspiration on issues like dwelling decor, recipes, and gardening, is now the primary main on-line platform to implement a ban towards local weather change misinformation.

The platform notes an growing curiosity from its customers in main a extra sustainable life-style with searches for ‘zero waste lifestyle’ growing by 64% prior to now 12 months.

The new coverage will take away content material that denies the human affect on local weather change or the promotion of false details about local weather change options. It’ll additionally take down posts that misrepresent scientific knowledge to encourage distrust in local weather specialists in addition to content material that spreads dangerous info on public security throughout emergencies.

Pinterest can also be banning advertisements that promote conspiracy theories, misinformation and disinformation associated to local weather change.

The firm collaborated with the Climate Disinformation Coalition and the Conscious Advertising Network to develop its coverage based mostly on frequent misinformation themes that they discover throughout totally different media platforms.

“This bold move is an expansion of our broader misinformation guidelines, which we first developed in 2017 to address public health misinformation, and have since updated to address new and emerging issues as they come to the forefront,” Sarah Bromma, Pinterest’s Head of Policy, mentioned in a statement. “The expanded climate misinformation policy is yet another step in Pinterest’s journey to combat misinformation and create a safe space online.”

In 2017, Pinterest rolled out a coverage that focused well being misinformation equivalent to anti-vaccine content material. They later banned political marketing campaign advertisements in 2018, and weight-loss advertisements in 2021.

The announcement comes days after the launch of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which warned that the world must implement drastic modifications over the subsequent three years in an effort to attempt to keep away from the worst impacts of local weather change.

Last 12 months, Google announced that it might now not run advertisements that deny the existence and causes of local weather change.

But social media platforms nonetheless must step up in relation to combating local weather change misinformation on-line.

In November 2021, The Conscious Advertising Network wrote an open letter directed at Facebook, Instagram, Google, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest and Reddit, urging them to implement insurance policies towards local weather misinformation.

“Implement climate misinformation and disinformation policies and enforcement that extend to content, algorithms and advertising, similar to the robust Covid-19 policies that have been published over the last 18 months,” the letter learn.