Yesterday, Buzzfeed published an investigation of the growing sector of seedy online public relations companies that use dishonest and misleading efforts to manipulate public opinion. From fake news to fake fact checks to fake Facebook groups, political parties and corporations are fully embracing the dark arts of propaganda.
By automating bots to shape online discussions and using poorly-paid staff (including those with disabilities, whose salary is subsidized by government programs) to run an army of fake accounts, unscrupulous opportunists are ramping up their efforts to use Facebook and other social media platforms to serve the highest bidder.
While the investigation is focused on international efforts, and the Guardian covers bot-assisted misinformation about the Australian fires, here in the US the fossil fuel industry has made these complex PR efforts look like child’s play.
Case in point: the American Petroleum Institute’s latest effort to shore up public opinion with a seven figure ad campaign and new EnergyForProgress website. API also has a new 30-second spot, continuing its efforts to convince the public that the fossil fuel industry can be part of the solution to climate change.
But of course, the actual ads are only a tiny sliver of the industry’s PR efforts. While the young online PR upstarts are busy building fake accounts and websites, the fossil fuel industry is decades ahead, having already built entire organizations and supposed news outlets dedicated to promoting petroleum and its dirty cousins.
Take, for example, CEI’s year-end post about how great it is that President Trump’s Department of Energy “has done a complete 180” on an Obama-era regulation on light bulbs. Moving from incandescent to modern bulbs reduces energy consumption, saving consumers on their bills and reducing emissions. What’s not to like? Well, if you’re a group like CEI that’s funded by dirty energy, despite admitting that “incandescent haters do have a point-- alternatives are available that are generally better for most purposes,” you still have to find a reason to oppose those better alternatives because reducing energy consumption means less profits for your funders.
While the dishonest online PR companies Buzzfeed exposed are creating websites that look like news, something the fossil fuel industry has done quite successfully, the industry also has some ostensibly “real” news outlets at it disposal. Namely, the Wall Street Journal, and more specifically, its opinion page. As evidence, see an editorial from Monday in which the outlet lamented that financial companies moving away from fossil fuels aren’t responding to the actual threat of climate change (and climate policies) on their bottom line, but instead are “acting mainly to appease anti-carbon pressure groups.” Because obviously Goldman Sachs cares more about making climate activists happy than it does making money…
With Australia burning, the paper’s editorial board thought it was a good idea to chastise banks that are refusing to lend to fossil fuel companies, and with the dumbest of arguments to boot. The editorial asks rhetorically if the reader remembers warnings of fossil fuels becoming stranded assets as renewables out-compete them, and then wonders why activists are pressuring institutions to abandon fossil fuels if they’re going to be uneconomic soon anyway.
Gee WSJ, maybe because activists want the economy to thrive instead of collapse when governments finally get serious about reducing fossil fuel emissions to zero?
It then concludes by pointing to China and Russia’s investments in fossil fuels, because nothing could possibly prove that the WSJ is committed to the free market better than its suggestion that banks follow the lead of former and currently communist government-backed entities.
So really, who needs to set up a new fake newspaper to preach the unholy gospel of fossil fuels when the WSJ is already doing the job so well?