Monday news round-up: October 11th 2021

Google to step into the fight with climate change misinformation. The tech company announced that it would stop the ads running on climate-change-denying Youtube videos.

The new policy will apply to content that contradicts the “scientific consensus around the existence and cause of climate change”. It would include such content that refers to climate change as a “hoax” or a “scam”, any claims denying that “global climate is warming”, and claims that deny that greenhouse emissions and human activity contribute to climate change.

Such changes mean that creators who share content denying climate change will stop earning advertising revenue from Youtube.

Critics have been calling social media platforms to deal with the spread of climate change misinformation with the same seriousness as they dealt with the disinformation about the pandemic.

The European Parliament has called for a ban on facial recognition and biometric surveillance tech tools. Earlier this month, the parliament discussed AI use in criminal law, saying that it causes a threat to human rights.

The parliament’s calls come after the European data protection regulators have stressed the need for a ban on facial recognition technologies to be used in public spaces.

Last month, the UN’s human rights chief raised similar concerns about potentially “catastrophic” effects the AI technologies could have if human rights were not considered.