Meet the 'Toxic Ten': The fringe outlets behind most climate change denial on the internet

Climate change is intensifying. Global temperatures are rising and weather is becoming more extreme. It's increasingly clear that world leaders need to act now.

Counterpoint: A Facebook friend shared a link that said "nuh-uh."

Where did your buddy on Facebook find this climate denial content? It's quite likely that it comes from one of 10 online media publishers.

According to a study published Tuesday by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a non-profit organization that tracks and analyzes online hate and misinformation, just 10 publishers account for the vast majority of climate denial content on the most popular social media platforms. These publishers include the far-right outlet Breitbart, cable news channel Newsmax, and conservative personality Ben Shapiro's The Daily Wire.

These 10 "super polluters" have received nearly 1.1 billion visits to their websites over the past six months and have a combined 186 million subscribers across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. The bulk of their reach is on Facebook, however. These 10 outlets account for a whopping 69 percent of Facebook user interactions on climate denialism content.

Facebook has made moves in recent years to address climate denial content on its platform. The company started adding labels to climate change-related posts earlier this year in an effort to combat misinformation. Facebook also said it would ramp up its efforts on climate change misinformation just last month.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate, however, found that more than 92 percent of the Toxic Ten's climate denial content on Facebook had no labels. The content analyzed in the study was posted between October 2020 and October 2021, well within the timeframe in which Facebook announced it would combat climate change misinformation.

Mashable reached out to Facebook for comment and will update this post when we hear back.

The study also found that eight out of the 10 publishers advertise on Facebook, meaning the social network is profiting off of media outlets who spread climate change misinformation.

But Facebook is far from the only problem.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate's analysis found that eight out of these 10 publishers are also generating income from Google Adsense, the search engine's advertising revenue share program. The study estimates that these climate denial spreaders have generated an estimated $5.3 million combined from Google over the past six months.

"We recently announced a new policy that explicitly prohibits publishers and YouTube Creators from monetizing content that promotes climate change denial," said Google in a statement provided to Mashable. "This policy will go into effect on November 8 and our enforcement will be as targeted as removing ads from individual pages with violating content."

In addition to the previously mentioned climate denial publishers, the Toxic Ten is also made up of smaller conservative outlets such as Western Journal, Townhall Media, Media Research Center, The Washington Times, The Federalist Papers, and Patriot Post.

Russian state media outlets RT.com and Sputnik News round out the group.

Earlier this year, the Center for Countering Digital Hate released a study analyzing the top contributors to vaccination misinformation on social media, dubbed the Disinformation Dozen. That study went viral months later when the Biden administration referenced it while criticizing Facebook.

The research group is now setting its sights on the Big Tech companies helping climate denial flourish on the internet.

"We are calling on Facebook and Google to stop promoting and funding climate denial, start labeling it as misinformation, and stop giving the advantages of their enormous platform to lies and misinformation," said Center for Countering Digital hate CEO Imran Ahmed. "As long as Facebook and Google carry on doing business with climate deniers, they cannot claim to be 'green.' They owe it to us and the planet we all share, to deliver."