Who fact checks the fact-checkers?

Last week, a retired physics professor called Nick Cowern said it was time to get tough with ‘climate denialists’. ‘In my opinion the publication of climate disinformation should be a criminal offence,’ he posted on Twitter. He was ridiculed, but what sounds ludicrously over-the-top today could easily become the norm tomorrow. At least four EU member states have made it a criminal offence to spread disinformation – Hungary, Lithuania, Malta and France – and others including Ireland are preparing to do the same. In the UK, the Online Safety Bill will introduce a new false communications offence.

I have a dog in this fight since I run a news publishing website that’s frequently accused of spreading false information about climate change. Scarcely a week goes by without a fact-checking agency concluding that an article we’ve published – often by Chris Morrison, the environment editor – is false or misleading. If support for free speech continues to deteriorate, it’s possible that in about five years I’ll be found guilty of ‘denialism’ and sentenced to hard labour.

One of the problems with criminalising ‘climate disinformation’ is there’s no infallible authority the courts could rely on to determine whether a particular claim about something climate-related is true or false.