How the #Climate Conversation is playing out on TikTok
A roundup of the climate conversation across social media this week
Welcome to Climate Monitor, a weekly, data-driven report on the digital strategies polluters and pro-Climate groups are using to shift public opinion and move legislation. Here’s what we found:
Toplines:
Climate-related hashtags – both pro-climate and anti-climate – have been used billions of times globally on TikTok, revealing a significant new arena for climate discourse both in the U.S. and worldwide
Chevron is running a new Spanish-language ad campaign on Facebook targeting Californians
Bill Gates wants us to build more high-voltage, clean-energy transmission lines
Misinformation about climate-friendly diet alternatives, like artificial meat, is spreading rapidly online
Digital Advertising Roundup
Facebook + Instagram 👍
One new and notable ad campaign this week came from Chevron. They are running Spanish-language ads on Facebook and Instagram in California that promote the Big Oil company’s clean energy initiatives.
Another notable, new campaign this week came from the Electrification Coalition. They are running video ads on Facebook and Instagram in Nevada and Washington D.C. respectively that tout the importance of getting more EVs out on the road.
And finally, the Nuclear Energy Institute is running new ads on Facebook and Instagram nationwide. These ads promote the Institute’s pro-nuclear energy podcast, Fissionary.
Google & YouTube 🎞️
There were no noteworthy climate or energy advertisers archived by Google last week.
Snapchat 🤳
There were no new ad climate or energy campaigns archived by Snapchat this week.
🔦 Spotlight: How the #Climate Conversation is playing out on TikTok
How (and how many) Americans use TikTok to learn about the news has become a spotlight issue, especially as we head into the 2024 election cycle. In November, the Pew Research Center released a study that found that the number of people who claimed to consume news on TikTok had quadrupled over the past three years, growing from 3% to 14%. And in looking at this growth, it comes primarily from young people ages 18-29 – more than 32% of this age group claims to regularly get information about current events on TikTok. (It should be noted, however, that this survey is self-reported and doesn’t specifically define “news” so it can be taken with a grain of salt).
But considering both the data and anecdotal evidence, it is undeniable that TikTok has begun to play a new – and growing – role in our media ecosystem. And that has important implications for climate news and information in the U.S.
To dig into this, we took a look at one of the few open-source metrics that TikTok provides: the number of times that a hashtag has been used in the caption of a video. For example, #climate has been used 1,600,000,000 times on the app worldwide. This hashtag is presumably primarily used in English-speaking countries and then shown primarily to English-speaking users – and many of these users and viewers are here in the U.S. Transparency from TikTok about the exact time frame that they have been tracking hashtag usage is not readily available. The app launched globally (including in the U.S.) in August 2018 and was actively tracking hashtags as of 2019. As such, the hashtag data that TikTok displays appears to have been accumulated over the past five years.
We also took a look at some of the all-time top options (2018-2023) when searching climate-related hashtags:
While not all content marked with these hashtags will be directly aligned with the hashtag itself, it is clear when browsing through these climate-related videos on TikTok that the majority of them are related to promoting climate action or justice.
That is unsurprising given that so many younger people are on TikTok and that young people, on average, are more likely to be alarmed by the climate crisis and desire action. What is surprising, however, is the sheer magnitude of the hashtag usage – for example, #climateaction being used 2.5 billion times is staggering.
There is, however, a flip side to this. We also looked around for anti-climate hashtags and the paired content. As a policy, TikTok suppresses misinformation. So, for example, it appears that #climatehoax is suppressed if one types it in. People, however, have found a way around that by using synonyms or different spellings of the words. Here are some examples of what we found regarding all-time usage (2018-2023) of anti-climate hashtags on TikTok:
The total usage of just the four examples amounts to over 1,500,000 usages worldwide. Even accounting for the fact that not all videos marked with this hashtag will actually include anti-climate content, it appears that many of them do, resulting in a pretty significant amount of climate misinformation. This should definitely raise some alarm bells.
All in all, there seem to be two lessons to be learned here: first, TikTok has become the home of a huge discourse about climate, which presents a crucial opportunity to be a part of and shape this discourse with high-quality information. Second, both the U.S. TikTok audience and the global TikTok audience are definitely under threat from climate disinformation that people have found ways to sneak onto the platform.
What’s Trending on Social Media
How are climate and energy issues being discussed by Americans on social media? Every week, we conduct a robust keyword search using CrowdTangle for general terms like “climate change,” “global warming,” “fossil fuels,” and over 40 more specific topics (like “electric vehicles,” “gas stoves” and “pipelines”). Here were the 10 top-performing public posts (by # of interactions) related to climate and energy on Facebook last week:
Last week, over 9,200 public Facebook posts mentioned climate or energy issues, and they earned a cumulative 633,900 interactions.
Over on the Right, the discussion about gas stoves reared its head yet again. Conservative commentator Dan Bongino posted about a new Thanksgiving photo of Vice President Harris that showed her standing in front of a gas stove, which amassed over 8,000 interactions.
Meanwhile, over on the Left, a large grassroots organization called The Democratic Coalition posted several graphics touting President Biden’s clean energy and climate resiliency victories.
And finally, Bill Gates posted a direct-to-camera explainer video about the necessity of creating more high-voltage transmission lines when it comes to securing a clean energy future. Check it out here >>>
Here were the top-performing feed posts (excluding Reels and Stories) related to climate and energy on Instagram last week:
Last week, over 10,300 public Instagram feed posts mentioned climate or energy issues, and they earned a cumulative 9.8 million interactions.
The top three climate-related posts on Instagram this past week (in order) came from @pubity about London’s decision not to build their own sphere due to light pollution, @universalmusicgroup about girl group Black Pink being awarded for their role as United Nations Climate Change Conference advocates, and @wall about climate protestors who joined with pro–Palestine protesters at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Weekly Reading
Want to go deeper? Here’s a quick roundup of news from the past week at the intersection of climate, digital strategy, and advocacy.
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Misinformation about “fake meat” and other climate-friendly diet alternatives has been spreading rapidly online, fueled by prominent figures like Donald Trump Jr. (Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 11/29)
Seven years later, the federal government is asking the public to weigh in on what they think about the Dakota Access Pipeline (Grist, 11/21)
Here are five narratives to watch out for at the COP28 climate summit this week (DeSmog, 11/22)
That’s it for this week! If you enjoyed reading this week’s issue, feel free to forward it to a friend or colleague.
Climate Monitor is a product of the Digital Climate Coalition + FWIW Media. Tips/comments/questions? Email lucy@fwiwmedia.com