Musk's free-for-all Twitter hinders 'troll hunters' battling climate denial

Despite the threat climate change poses to the planet, disinformation about it has gone largely unsanctioned on Twitter. But a secretive global community of about 25 scientists and activists, calling themselves Team Ninja Trollhunters (TNT), found a roundabout way to tackle it.

Since its founding in 2019, TNT claims to have secured the suspension of some 600 accounts of climate crisis denialists by reporting them for other infringements, including hate speech, that are officially recognised by the platform as valid grounds for termination.

"If they're saying something racist or offensive or misogynist, we can get them kicked off," one Germany-based TNT member, a 45-year-old scientist who asked to be identified as Tom, told AFP news agency in a Zoom interview.

'Opened the floodgates'

That approach appeared to work before Musk's turbulent $44 billion acquisition of Twitter last October. Research by monitoring groups indicates a spike in misinformation on the platform as moderation was gutted and a paid verification system boosted conspiracy theorists.

Adding to the turmoil, self-proclaimed free speech absolutist Musk has restored what researchers estimate are tens of thousands of accounts once suspended for violations, including incitement to violence, harassment and misinformation.

Twitter's press office and members of its sustainability team who were laid off after the takeover declined to comment.

READ MORE: Trolls flood Twitter with slurs to test 'free speech' after Musk takeover

"We got some fairly big accounts removed" but many came back "when Elon Musk kind of opened the floodgates again," said Tom.

"We've had to change tactics" - less reporting of abusive accounts and more debunking of science claims, he added. "It's a real struggle to keep up."

Among other accounts targeted by TNT, a prominent US climate change denier was suspended in 2021 for "spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to Covid-19", according to a s creenshot posted by one of his followers.

Spreading false information about Covid-19 "is fairly common for science-denial accounts: there's a lot of overlap due to conspiracy-thinking tendencies for the fact-adverse," Peter said.

The user returned with a new handle before the takeover and now has a "verified" checkmark, available for sale under Musk. He has posted regularly using the popular denialist hashtag ClimateScam, peddling misleading claims on topics such as arctic ice, temperatures and droughts.