By Elizabeth Culliford

(Reuters). Facebook (NASDAQ:) has not added labels to 50% of its posts linking to top climate-change deniers. According to an analysis done by the Center for Countering Digital Hate,

On Wednesday, the research was also released. This follows news Frances Haugen’s lawyers filed a complaint to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that the company misled investors on its efforts in combating climate change and COVID-19.

Facebook (now known as Meta Platforms) has been long under investigation for misinformation being spread on its platforms. The company said https://about.fb.com/news/2021/02/connecting-people-with-credible-climate-change-information last year it would add informational labels to some posts about climate change, to direct users to its new Climate Science Information Center hub.

In a November report, the UK’s Center for Countering Digital Hate identified 10 digital publishers whose articles accounted for 69% of Facebook interactions related to climate denial articles. They were referred to as “Toxic Ten”. https://www.counterhate.com/toxicten

CCDH revealed this week that 50% of the 184 articles promoting climate denialism content from these authors were not labeled in their analysis.

After Meta’s announcement that the labeling feature was being rolled out in a few countries, including the United States of America, CCDH claimed it had analyzed post between May 2021 to January 2022.

Kevin McAlister, Meta spokesperson, said that “we hadn’t fully rolled out the labeling program during the timeframe of this report.” Meta stated that its initial labeling phase was not directed to all posts, but only a subset.

However, CCDH found that five of the 12 posts analyzed did not contain a label between December 20th and January 20,

Meta claimed that they combat climate change misinformation through “connecting people with reliable information in multiple languages from leading organisations through our Climate Science Center”, and also by working with independent fact checkers (of which Reuters one) to rate the veracity of content, and to label it and decrease its distribution.

CCDH highlighted one example of unlabeled posts in a NewsBusters article about “alarmist propaganda for climate change.” NewsBusters has not yet responded to comment requests.

Imran Ahmed (CCDH Chief Executive) stated in a statement that although Meta claims it cares about climate, they’ve failed to stop misinformation spreading about it on their platform.

Meta is also requested by the CCDH to provide data regarding effectiveness of labels.

Whistleblower Aid has filed an SEC lawsuit against Facebook alleging that it misled investors in relation to its climate work. This was reported first by the Washington Post.

The Facebook internal messages board leaked conversations that claimed that awareness of its Climate Science Information Center was low for western market users or that raised questions about the transparency surrounding decisions regarding climate change misinformation. Leaked conversations also referred to staff sparring about how they should deal with climate misinformation, and flagging prominent instances on Facebook.

McAlister, a spokesperson for Meta said that there are not universal solutions to stop misinformation spreading. However, she stated that they were committed to developing new policies and tools to counter it.