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Climate Activism

CAAD report: A rise in violent language used online to describe protesters in 2023

14 December 2023

In an analysis of the language used to describe climate activists on a range of social media platforms in 2022 and 2023, Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) identified a rise in labels such as “extremists”, “lunatics” or even “terrorists”. The analysis found that allusions to violence on social media appear to be increasing, particularly in comment sections. Key findings included:

  • On X (formerly Twitter): Over 220,000 posts included ‘loaded’ language such as “climate cult” and over 90,000 posts and replies contained ‘securitised’ language such as “eco terrorist”. While the overall volume of posts remained stable over the past two years, we found that replies containing ‘securitised’, ‘dehumanising’ or ‘othering’ language have more than doubled. Specifically, references to “climate cultists” and “eco-terrorists” feature prominently in high-traction posts about protests.
  • On Facebook and Instagram: Posts containing denigrating language were shared a cumulative 1.86 million times in the timeframe. Language like “climate lunatic”, “eco extremist”, “green zealot” or “Net Zero terrorist” features in over 68,000 posts across both platforms.
  • On TikTok: TikTok’s relatively stringent moderation has led to a culture of coded violence that uses devices like dog whistles and irony to evade detection. For example, one post with over 80,000 likes shares footage of climate protesters alongside a clip of the video game Grand Theft Auto – a game well-known for allowing players to run over pedestrians. Even ostensibly ‘neutral’ content around climate activism or protests sees violent rhetoric emerge in the comments, often receiving thousands of likes.

This kind of online discourse is troubling. And on social media platforms with large numbers of users, shares can quickly add up, so the views of an angry minority can spread quickly.

Offline, although public attitudes towards disruptive protest groups like Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil are generally not positive, opinion data shows the UK public evenly split on whether campaigners are ‘out of touch’ with the rest of the country.

So although public opinion isn’t altogether favourable towards protesters, the violent language documented by CAAD is likely to be more ‘out of touch’ with mainstream popular opinion, than the actions of the protesters themselves.

 

Reference article:

  • Author: Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD)
  • Date: 5th December 2023

The latest from the Climate Activism timeline:

Media Insight 23rd October 2024

New study addresses impact of climate protest images on audiences

What impact do visual representations of climate protesters in the media have on audiences? A new study has addressed this in light of the recent media trend towards depicting more young and female protesters in news stories.

By comparing audience responses to 10 different images (photo-edited to make comparisons in the study), the researchers found that images showing climate protestors and the police together, as well as images of younger protestors, tended to lead to more negative emotional responses amongst audiences. This included feelings of guilt and shame about climate impacts affecting future generations.

The content of the protest images did not deeply influence audiences’ broader climate attitudes and behaviours after viewing them. But the researchers did find that feelings towards protest images were influenced by a range of factors, such as the audiences’ gender, and suggest that the viewers’ worldview may play a role too.

  • Authors: Yu Shuang Gan, Sylvia Hayes, Lorraine Whitmarsh
  • Date: 9th October 2024
Opinion Insight 19th August 2024

Is ‘climate crisis’ a more effective term than ‘climate change’?

What’s in a name? The question of what the best – most persuasive, or least polarising – term for climate change is, has a long history.

On the one hand, small tweaks to individual words or short phrases are unlikely to be driving big differences in perceptions one way or another. People’s values, worldviews, political ideology and increasingly the perceived fairness of different climate policies, are what drives public engagement.

But whether its the editorial choices made by leading international newspapers, to the framing of campaigns that drive media coverage of climate activism, linguistic choices do carry some weight. Previous research has argued that some terms (e.g. ‘global warming’) are more emotive; campaigners have criticised ‘climate change’ as a term for lacking urgency.

In a new open-access paper, researchers tested a wide range of different terms, including ‘climate change’, ‘global warming’, ‘climate crisis’, climate emergency’ and ‘climate justice’, in a survey of over 5000 US residents and concluded:

Overall, “climate change” and “global warming” were rated as most familiar and most concerning, and “climate justice” the least, with ratings for “climate crisis” and “climate emergency” falling in between.

Moreover, we find no evidence for “climate crisis” or “climate emergency” eliciting more perceived urgency than “climate change” or “global warming.”

We therefore recommend sticking with familiar terms, conclude that changing terminology is likely not the key solution for promoting climate action, and suggest alternative communication strategies.

The ‘alternative communication strategies’ might include identifying tangible ways in which audiences with different moral and political values could benefit from specific climate policies, or ensuring communities impacted by new energy infrastructure, or changes to urban travel systems, feel adequately consulted.

Confirming previous research around the general lack of familiarity with the term ‘climate justice’, the paper also noted that willingness to support climate-friendly policies and eat less red meat were lowest for ‘climate justice’ (which was the least familiar term tested).

This isn’t an argument for downplaying the importance of the issues the term refers to, which are central to both international climate governance and the implementation of specific in-country policies. But it does underscore the lack of recognition of the phrase among many public audiences, a finding which has also been observed in UK research.

 

Climate Barometer Tracker 21st April 2024

Tracker data: the public is split on whether climate campaigners are ‘out of touch’

Climate Barometer tracker data shows that over the past year, the number of people who agree that ‘people who campaign on climate issues are ‘out of touch’ with the rest of the country’ has increased (from 29% to 37%), while fewer people disagree (from 43% to 34%). Overall, the public is remains split: similar numbers are also unsure (30%).

This division reflects the tension at the heart of climate activism: how to challenge the status quo whilst avoiding alienating the people who, ultimately, campaigners aim to ‘win over’.

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