Most people study what misinformation says.
We decided to study how it looks.
Using novel multi-modal AI methods, we study 17,848 posts by top climate denial accounts - and uncovered a new front in the misinformation war.
Here's what it means 🧵
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....On social media, content is no longer just text -
it’s text wrapped in images and motion.
Visuals travel faster, trigger emotion more easily, and slip past critical thought.
That’s what makes them such fertile ground for misinformation -
and yet, we’ve barely studied them.
When we examined the visual language of climate misinformation, the results were striking
We found what we call "scientific mimicry".
Much of it borrows the look and feel of science:
clean graphs, neutral tones, and technical diagrams that perform objectivity.
It looks like science - but it’s not
These posts could pass for pages from a scientific report -
except they twist or cherry-pick data to cast doubt on climate science.
They give misinformation the aesthetics of rationality:
white men in white lab coats pointing at complicated graphs.
Meanwhile, climate researchers and activists are portrayed as emotional and irrational:
😢 Crying protesters
⚠️ Angry crowds
🚫 “Ideological fanatics”
The contrast is deliberate:
Climate denial looks calm and factual.
Climate action looks hysterical and extreme.
This aesthetic strategy expands denialism’s reach.
It appeals to audiences who’d never click on conspiracies -
because it looks like reason, not ideology.
By mimicking science, denialists perform neutrality while undermining it.
This isn’t just denial.
It’s strategic depoliticization.
Nov 4, 2025 20:48The battlefield of misinformation isn’t just about facts.
It’s about form.
Design and aesthetics have become powerful weapons - shaping what feels rational, what seems credible, and who gets to speak for science.
