“Disgraceful:” Bowen demands answers as social media giants remove EV and nuclear articles

Federal energy and climate minister Chris Bowen has demanded answers from social media giants, and Facebook owner Meta in particular, after a series of articles supportive of electric vehicles and critical of the federal Coalition’s nuclear policy were removed from their platforms.

Last month, Renew Economy published an analysis on the soaring cost of nuclear power by leading economist John Quiggin. We attempted to post it in our feed on social media but Facebook removed it without explanation.

Other posts critical of the Coalition’s nuclear claims have also been removed, and readers report that their attempts to post the articles on their Facebook feeds had also failed.

On Friday, the Australian Conservation Foundation – which has also been critical of the Coalition’s nuclear policies, also had its page on X, formerly twitter, frozen, much to the delight of the pro-nuclear zealots, including the schoolboy funded by the deep-pocketed renewable critic Dick Smith.

“ACF has received another suspension on X for no reason,” the ACF’s head of engagement Jane Gardiner wrote on her account, which has not been suspended.

“I believe we’re being report bombed by pro-nuclear groups. This is not isolated: factual nuclear info from @renew_economy & @climatecouncil has also been removed from Facebook and TikTok recently. We are under attack.”

Last week, Renew Economy’s EV-focused sister site The Driven also had a post removed from Facebook by Meta. This time it was about the start of a new price war on electric cars, this time driven by MG. Facebook said it was because the article breached community standards.

Bowen said he was not impressed.

“This is disgraceful,” he wrote on X. “A news outlet publishes a straight and factual article about EV prices coming down and @Meta bans it.

“Social media has the responsibility to police disinformation and facilitate factual updates. Social media is of course full of climate disinformation. There is no excuse for Meta blocking this factual article. I look forward to Meta justifying this decision.”

Researchers have pointed to a network of so-called think tanks and fossil fuel ginger groups who have been ramping up their presence on social media, attacking renewable and EV technologies, and promoting coal and nuclear. Yet it appears these posts, often laughably wrong, are not taken down.

The fossil fuel industry is largely behind these actions because nuclear serves two purposes for coal and gas – it delays action on climate and emissions reduction by several decades, and causes coal fired power generators to stay open for longer and for new gas generation to be built. The social media giants appear to have taken sides.