GLOSSARY

In this report we have used a number of labels that have helped us to categorize and analyze brands that were advertised in the videos we have reviewed. The purpose of the labels were to, in an accessible manner, improve the categorization and analysis process during the development of this report.

Climate change denial and misinformation:

We defined “climate change denial and misinformation” as verifiably false or misleading information assessed against the scientific consensus represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, NASA, NOAA and peer-reviewed scientific literature, which has the potential to cause public harm, such as undermining public support for efforts to limit human-induced climate change, and/or is being disseminated by a known source of climate change misinformation. The content included ranges from denying that significant climate change is occuring to claiming that human activity is not significantly responsible for it or denying that humans can take significant actions to reduce or mitigate its impact.

Climate change:

According to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Article 1:2,125 climate change is defined as: “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.”

Global warming:

According to the IPCC, 126 global warming refers to “the gradual increase, observed or projected, in global surface temperature, as one of the consequences of radiative forcing caused by anthropogenic emissions.”

Climate change denier, sceptic or doubter:

After decades of research, there’s now an overwhelming consensus among climate scientists127 that the world is getting significantly warmer, and that human greenhouse gas emissions are the main cause. Yet, there are still individuals and groups that continue to question climate change and/or humans’ responsibility in the process. Due to lack of consensus on terminology for those who deny/do not believe in climate change/humans’ role in climate change, mainstream media use various terms, such as climate change “deniers,”128 “sceptics”129 and “doubters”.130 The Guardian131 refers to them as “people who deny the legitimacy of the scientific evidence on climate change – not only the evidence that emissions of greenhouse gas have all sorts of impacts on the world’s climate but also the evidence that the future looks pretty risky if we don’t do something.”

Recommended videos:

In this report, recommended videos refer to all videos that are shown to viewers on the right hand side of the watch page under ‘Up Next’, below the video on the mobile app, on the right of the screen on desktop. These are a personalized collection of videos chosen by the YouTube algorithms and recommended to individual viewers as videos they may be interested in watching next. The tool our team used to find these recommended videos takes a search term and generates a list of all the videos that are related to the top video results from that search term.

Related Videos:

YouTube provided Avaaz with the following definition: "The RelatedToVideoID endpoint of the YouTube API returns videos that tend to be watched together in the same sessions by our users. It does not represent logged-in or logged-out recommendations, and can be heavily impacted (for instance) by the fact that a third party website would link to a set of videos in the same article.”

It is our understanding that related videos constitute an important subset of the videos chosen by YouTube’s algorithms for the "Up-Next” feature and suggestions bar, for the section below the video on the mobile app, and on the right of the screen on desktop.

Green

A product or service provided by a for-profit or non-profit organization and/or a company that aims to promote ecological sustainability and renewable resources, improve the wellbeing of the planet, fight climate change, and/or companies which core business are related to environmental services.

Ethical

A product or service provided by a for-profit or non-profit organization and/or a company and/or a public entity expected to hold a higher ethical standard than others given their activity or sector.

Tech/Entertainment

A product or service provided by a for-profit or non-profit organization or company that aims to entertain and/or solve a technical need. It includes, but not exclusively, films, series, games, apps, computer programs, webinars, e-training, and e-books.