Arguments
The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations
Posted on 14 July 2023 by BaerbelW
The FLICC-Poster is the result of a successful collaboration between Skeptical Science and our German partner website Klimafakten. It was first published in May 2020 and has been quite popular since then, helped a lot in all likelihood by the appealing design created by Marie-Pascale Gafinen. Initially created in German, an English translation followed quickly and the Dutch translation made an appearance a few months later. The poster for sure is an eye-catcher on social media and if you look for hashtags like #flicc or #plurv or #ploks on Twitter you'll find many tweets sharing the poster whereever misinformation needs to be debunked, be it about climate change or COVID-19.
The central download hub for the posters is klimafakten.de so the links included below end up there.
Update July 14, 2023:
French, Luxembourgish and Polish translations published.
Translations
The FLICC-Poster has been translated into the following languages (links to the Klimafakten articles are in German):
| German PLURV Download (PDF)  |
Dutch PLOKS Download (PDF)  |
Portuguese EFEST Download (PDF)  |
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| Spanish FRESI Download (PDF)  |
French FLIPiC Download (PDF)  |
Luxembourgish FLOKK Download (PDF)  |
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| Polish PLOWS Download (PDF)  |
Other Languages In the works  |
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Note to other translators:
If you'd like to translate The FLICC Poster into another language or help with a translation currently in progress, please contact us by selecting "Enquiry about translations" from the contact form's dropdown menu. In addition to translating the poster, we are also looking for help spreading the translated posters in countries where the languages are spoken. If you have any suggestions for that, please also let us know via the contact form. Thanks!
The creation of additional translations of the poster requires funding for professional design and layout work. You can contribute to that effort here.
This is indeed helpful. And tragically, more helpful items like this are likely to need to be constantly repeated as a reminder to people because, as this NPR News item nicely summarizes in its headline, "The truth in political advertising: 'You're allowed to lie'"
[BL] Link fixed, based on following comment.
OPOF @1 good news item, but the link doesn't work. Found the article here:
www.npr.org/2022/03/17/1087047638/the-truth-in-political-advertising-youre-allowed-to-lie
nigelj, Thanks for helping with the link.
It is tragic that so much effort is required to try to clean up the messes of harmful misunderstanding that are created by politically motivated marketers.
The SkS team are very helpful, especially with the generalized presentation on this poster. It helps on many 'misleading marketing fronts', not just the climate science issues.
A related reference if you are interested in the gory details of advertising standards is the International Council for Ad Self-Regulation. The following is linked (hopefully) to the ICAS Advertising Standards web page which opens with the following:
"Self-regulatory Advertising Standards and Codes exist to ensure that advertisements and all forms of marketing communications are prepared with a due sense of social responsibility. Among the basic principles incorporated in ad standards worldwide are the fact that ads should be legal, decent, honest and truthful. Moreover, ads should conform to the principles of fair competition, as generally accepted in business."
Imagine that ethical standard actually being honoured by all politically motivated marketers.
As I have previously stated, attempts to censor "misinformation " or "disinformation " if far more detrimental to the free exchange of ideas along with the advancement of knowledge. If what is stated is truly "disinformation, it will quickly be determined to be false. A good example is the lancet study that showed vaccines cause autism. That disinformation was quickly discovered to be false. If the statements are truly false, the free exchange of information will expose the misinformation for what it is.
Both sides of the political spectrum are purveyors of false information. I dont know how bad Faux news is since I dont listen to or read Fox/Faux, though though I can say many of the mainstream pervades in misinformation.
Granted there is large amounts of misinformation regarding climate science, yet bad information will eventually sink to the bottom with solid evidence.
Nigel posted the link to the NPR , though NPR is one of the worst offenders of misinformation. A few examples of NPR's misinformation include 1) during Trumps first well deserved impeachment, nary a word was mentioned of Hunters involvement in corruption, 2) during april 2020 NPR ran numerous stories on the "impossibility" of a lab leak, which 20 months later we know as the most likely source 3) During Sept & Oct 2020, npr ran numerous stories on Hunter's laptop as being russian disinformation though the NYT now admits was actually Hunters laptop
My apologies for delving outside climate science for examples. I am just pointing out that both sides of the political spectrum are heavily invested in disinformation. The obvious risk is allowing one side of the political spectrum to decide what to censor.
David-acct @4 : you should delve more. Your examples are not good.
Your example of misinformation [vaccine causing autism] was reasonably quickly debunked scientifically . . . yet here we are, nigh on 20 years later, with a significant slice of the population still believing it (or at least, feeling very uneasy & hesitant about the measles vaccine). And there is a multiplying effect ~ FUD breeds more FUD . . . perhaps analogous to a nuclear fission reactor core. It spills over into other vaccines : and has all gotten worse, thanks in part to flaky celebrities and venal "influencers". And it poisons the scientific well in other areas too.
David, you are living in the past, if you hold to "zero-censorship" ideals. The modern world is different to the pre-internet world which you seem to base your ideals on.
For a pictuesque analogy : the wood-fire of yesterday's communication systems (with some natural tendency to extinguishment) has become today's nuclear reactor, owing to the perversity and imperfections of the human psyche. Nowadays we very much need to use Control Rods to damp down the extensive misinformation (from ignorance) and the disinformation (from malice).
You can call it censorship, or name it some better-sounding term ~ but the underlying need, whether it's a nuclear fission reactor or a living organic cell, is for negative-feedback control mechanisms to sustain things in a healthy range.
Either zero-censorship or total censorship [which is an impossibility] . . . they are both dangerous extremes to aim for. They are both incompatible with a healthy society. ~ Please avoid doctrinaire ideologies, and aim for the middle path !
David-acct @ 4:
What on earth is your definition of "censorship"? As far as I can see, nothing in the post or comments calls for censorship, which is defined here as
Freedom of speech does not mean "free to speak, unopposed", and freedoms come with responsibilities. "Freedom" does not mean "free of consequences".
You expose your biases by talking of "both sides of the political spectrum". You create a "this side vs. that side" dichotomy. XKCD recently had a cartoon on false dichotomies:
...and then you complain that NPR did not discuss Hunter Biden while covering Trump's impeachment? You are engaging in Whataboutery. I"ll bet they did not cover WW II, Attila the Hun, Ted Bundy, etc. either. Maybe because whatever Hunter Biden may or may not have done had no relevance to what Trump had been doing?
Perhaps you should try actually reading the poster. Start in the top right corner, where it mentions "Fake Debate". Below that is "False Choice" (including "False Dichotomy"), and to the left of that is "Jumping to Conclusons".
You are ringing all the bells for having fallen for disinformation.
David-acct @4
The examples of misinformation you quite are not truly misinformation. They are the media getting things wrong or making mistakes. Misinformation in the context we are discussing is the deliberate spreading of false facts. Most of this seems to be from right wing sources currently in our own media in New Zealand.
David-acct @4,
Here is a Follow-up regarding your unjustified attack on NPR reporting:
The following Nature article "Wuhan market was epicentre of pandemic’s start, studies suggest" appears to rather conclusively prove that you have allowed yourself to be misled about the certainty that COVID-19 came from a lab ... perhaps because of a penchant for the reporting by sources like Fox News. And that bias may apply to other beliefs you have developed a liking for. You really should investigate if your developed bias, everyone has bias and can learn to change it, is causing you to be harmfully misled.
That Nature report has been referred to in NPR reports, including this one "How the false Russian biolab story came to circulate among the U.S. far right"
The FLICC-poster is now also available in Spanish where the acronym translates to FRESI.
Three more language versions of the FLICC-poster were added on July 14: French (FLIPiC), Luxembourgish (FLOKK) and Polish (PLOWS).
What a great poster this is. Those of us 'in the business' know exactly what each item means but, for the general public, the only criticisim I have is that it would have been so much better if it included examples of the rherorical deceit alluded to. Communicating science is hard enough, but trying to point out how people are being misled is so much harder.
Nick Palmer @11
Thanks for your feedback, Nick! I'm however not quite sure what kind of examples you would have liked to also see on the poster. Could you please provide an example? Should it be along the lines of the "Discourses of climate delay", then klimafakten might have something for you in the form of a quiz (and also a poster):
https://www.klimafakten.de/quiz/?lang=en