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Chemtrails and Geoengineering: A Zombie Disinfo Narrative That Just Won’t Stay Dead [1]

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Date: 2023-04-12  

When disinfluencers aren’t resourceful or creative enough to find any new disinformation to spread, they resort to dredging up something that happened years ago and pretending it’s recent news. Reduce, reuse, recycle! That’s exactly what happened this week, when disinformers took a speech former CIA Director John Brennan made at the Council on Foreign Relations in June 2016 and spread it around on Twitter as if it was a big new revelation about geoengineering and chemtrails.

Speaking about how “beneficial advances [in technology] can have destabilizing effects in the long run,” Brennan discussed geoengineering , the various dangerous strategies being considered to help cool the Earth’s atmosphere. More specifically, he mentioned “stratospheric aerosol injection, or SAI: a method of seeding the stratosphere with particles that can help reflect the sun’s heat in much the same way that volcanic eruptions do.” Brennan accurately described the many problems with SAI, including that it wouldn’t address climate change consequences like ocean acidification and that it could trigger major geopolitical tensions . He ultimately concluded, “as with other breakthrough technologies, global norms and standards are lacking to guide the deployment and implementation of SAI and other geoengineering initiatives.”

However, Twitter users who might never have heard of geoengineering are getting a very different message this week. Disinformers are using Brennan’s speech — ICYMI , from 2016 — to relentlessly spread false narratives about chemtrails, even though these tired claims have been debunked numerous times . According to Harvard researchers , the chemtrails conspiracy theory alleges with “no evidence” whatsoever that “governments or other parties are engaged in a secret program to add toxic chemicals to the atmosphere from aircraft in a way that forms visible plumes in the sky, somewhat similar to contrails.” This baseless conspiracy theory has been around since the 1990s , yet disinformers just won’t let it die out.

On Saturday, one disinfluencer tweeted a video of Brennan’s speech along with a line reading, “No more conspiracy theory - they admit to using Chemtrail” and captions (on the speech that has been around longer than the Confederacy existed ) declaring, “NO LONGER A CONSPIRACY THEORY” and “CIA DIRECTOR ADMITS PLANS FOR GEOENGINEERING VIA CHEMTRAILS.” Over the next few days, at least thirteen other accounts posted the same tweet or very similar disinformation . Not only that, but other Twitter disinformers conflated geoengineering with the chemtrails conspiracy theory using a 2021 Guardian article and spread baseless chemtrails disinformation in multiple languages.

Although this crusty old disinformation might seem amusing, it can have extremely damaging effects. The Pew Research Center found that as of 2021, “A little under half (48%) of U.S. adults say they get news from social media ‘often’ or ‘sometimes,’” and “roughly seven-in-ten U.S. Twitter users (69%) say they get news on the site.” Furthermore, Science Feedback found that after Elon Musk’s toxic Twitter takeover , “Misinformation ‘superspreader’ engagement increased [by] 44%,” so regular people are at higher risk than ever before of seeing harmful climate disinformation on the platform.

The Stop Toxic Twitter coalition is calling on Musk to “prioritize making the platform safer, [and] focus on ushering in an era where the company has stronger policies to protect users against hate, harassment, and toxicity.” Furthermore, the coalition is urging companies to “immediately stop advertising on Twitter.”

Until tech platforms and governments take a stand against digital disinformation, baseless climate conspiracy theories about chemtrails and geoengineering will continue to spread, even when lazy disinfluencers have nothing to rely on but stale, seven-year-old content.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/12/2163481/-Chemtrails-and-Geoengineering-A-Zombie-Disinfo-Narrative-That-Just-Won-t-Stay-Dead

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