17 million dollars since May 2018. This is how much oil companies and oil lobbies have spent buying advertising space on Facebook to create a distorted narrative around climate change and the impact that fossil fuels have on the climate crisis. Through both official profiles and local support groups, this is a constant, well-ramified effort aimed at influencing elections and public opinion on regulations and legislation under discussion or in the process of being passed to tackle climate change.

The findings come from the InfluenceMap working group, which examined 15 organisations connected to the US oil and gas sector — specifically 11 of the largest oil and gas companies operating in the United States, along with 4 of their sector-specific trade groups. InfluenceMap examined the use of paid political advertising published on Facebook by these organisations in the United States since May 2018, the month from which the social network — for transparency reasons, following the Cambridge Analytica case — made public the names of all companies paying for advertising on the platform.

Which oil companies spend the most

Oil companies use social media as propaganda tools, just as they do with advertising and the press, narrating "green" initiatives aimed at the energy future and the effort to transform their business-as-usual into something more sustainable. A narrative that is obviously distorted, because investments in oil and gas still far exceed those in less impactful technologies and energy sources.

According to the report, ExxonMobil is by far the most active profile on Facebook, spending nearly 10 times the budget of any other company. As InfluenceMap reports, "The company has used a range of communication strategies to promote support for increased fossil fuel production." Among the others are lobbying groups such as BP, Phillips 66 and Marathon Petroleum, which primarily used social media advertising to fund advertising as part of the "Vote No on 1631" campaign, in an attempt to oppose an initiative proposing a carbon tax.

The consent factory

The millions spent on communications, on social media advertising, as well as the high costs of managing in-house staff or external agencies to create dedicated campaigns, show how astroturfing has become a common practice. In other words, an attempt is made to manufacture consent from above, building a positive narrative around a product while also investing in advertising and marketing. Much like what is happening in our own country, where social media is being used extensively for propaganda purposes and to influence public opinion, including through false or denialist content. And not only on climate.