Abstract
This article investigates misinformation chains – fake news and clickbait – related to the 2019 oil spill along the coast of Northeast Brazil. A link between the intensive use of misinformation on YouTube and the environmental impact of digital media and algorithmic performativity has been found by analyzing videos about the 2019 Brazilian oil spill. A total of 591 YouTube videos were extracted based on a search for the hashtags ‘oleononordeste’, ‘vazamentopetroleo’, and ‘greenpixe’. The data thus obtained suggest that most of the corpus (80.37%) consists of misinformation, of which 65.82% (389 videos) is clickbait and 14.55% (86 videos) fake news. YouTube misinformation videos produced around 1.42 MtCO2e, the equivalent of burning 3.30 barrels of oil. We argue that misinformation chains increase pollution and carbon footprint as a result of at least three factors: (a) the extra energy cost of feeding algorithms; (b) increased algorithmic resistance to the visibility of journalistic information; and (c) undermining public debate about environmental catastrophes in favor of private interests (fake politics).
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