This Twitter Bot Is Calling BS on Agencies' Earth Day Pronouncements

The digital world is awash in green this Earth Day, with eco-friendly messages flooding inboxes, mailboxes and suggestion boxes all across the globe. Many of those messages come from companies eager to use the 52-year-old annual observance as a way to convince people that they really do care about the planet—maybe even more than they care about making money. But the sheer number of these pronouncements makes it nearly impossible for a regular person to separate the green from the greenwashed. Activist group Clean Creatives wants to make this simpler—at least for folks in the ad and PR world. The group worked with U.K.-based developer and creative strategist Rob Manuel to build a Twitter bot that would find and call out agencies that made posts about Earth Day while maintaining fossil fuel clients. The Green Action Gap The bot was inspired by a similar, fully automated account that called out companies' gender pay gaps, according to Clean Creatives strategist Joe Cole. Created by Francesca Lawson and Ali Fensome, the Gender Pay Gap Bot pulled publicly available U.K. government data to the forefront every time one of the companies listed in the database tweeted something about International Women's Day on March 8. Activist Group Clean Creatives Launches Awards Show Aimed at Calling Out 'Greenwashers' Unlike the Gender Pay Gap Bot, the Green Wash Bot isn't fully automated—it's what developers call a "curated bot," Manuel said. A behind-the-scenes, private account throws up options when one of the agencies listed in the database tweets, and then Clean Creatives determines which ones actually go live on the public account. Rather than a public database, it pulls information from the data behind Clean Creatives' F-List—a report that identifies 90 advertising and PR agencies that have worked with fossil fuel clients since 2008. Still, the data isn't linked within the callout tweets, making it hard for users to see a connection to Clean Creatives' evidence on first glance. At the time of writing, the bot had quote tweeted agencies including WPP, VMLY&R, IPG and Mindshare but had only built a following of just over 400 Twitter users. Eggs on faces One goal of the bot, Cole explained, is to make it easier for more people to get involved in the climate movement that Clean Creatives is building. The other goal is to "force these companies to make some sort of change—or at least put egg on their face," he said. https://twitter.com/greenwashbot/status/1517600473263448067?s=20&t=VbXW1oHDKK8DXcxUeTpy6A The bot follows several other projects from Clean Creatives, which was formed in 2020 to highlight the ad industry's connection to fossil fuel advertising during the presidential election. A project of Fossil Free Media, the campaign recruits ad and PR agencies and individuals to sign a pledge promising not to work with fossil fuel companies or their front groups. So far, 300 agencies and 708 individuals have signed the pledge. Last year, the group organized scientists, young creatives, influencers and celebrities to urge agencies to stop working with fossil fuel companies through open letters and social media campaigns. https://twitter.com/greenwashbot/status/1517602872350838784?s=20&t=VbXW1oHDKK8DXcxUeTpy6A The Green Wash Bot is one of dozens of Twitter bots that Manuel has developed over the past several years. He estimates that roughly 20 are still active on the platform, but that many others have been deleted, banned or lost. His most popular is @Fesshole, an account that tweets out anonymous confessions of sins, which users can submit through a simple Google form. This project, though, is underpinned with a moral conviction for Manuel, who spends most of his time working on more comedic endeavors. "There's just no argument—companies speaking with sly tongues, preaching green issues on Twitter whilst helping fossil fuel companies massage their message to the world—well, they need to be called out," he said. This Catchy Pop Song Warns Brands, Stop Greenwashing or Face a Lawsuit