Trump refuses to denounce threats to FEMA, doubles down on falsehoods; The Washington Post, October 21, 2024

Marianne LeVine

 and 

Isaac Arnsdorf

, The Washington Post, ; Trump refuses to denounce threats to FEMA, doubles down on falsehoods

"Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump declined to condemn violent threats to Federal Emergency Management Agency workers providing relief to Americans impacted by Hurricane Helene, instead criticizing the government’s storm response using false allegations.

Asked during a news conference here about whether the former president is harming the recovery effort after a man was arrested for threatening federal relief workers this month, Trump responded by repeating falsehoods, including those the suspect said motivated him. Trump did not offer any concern for the workers’ safety or a denunciation of violence."

FEMA resumes door-to-door visits in North Carolina after threats tied to disinformation; AP, October 15, 2024

MAKIYA SEMINERA AND SARAH BRUMFIELD, AP; FEMA resumes door-to-door visits in North Carolina after threats tied to disinformation

"Federal disaster personnel have resumed door-to-door visits as part of their hurricane-recovery work in North Carolina, an effort temporarily suspended amid threats that prompted officials to condemn the spread of disinformation."

‘Armed Militias’ Claims In N.C. Driven By Social Media Misinformation; Forbes, October 14, 2024

Peter Suciu, Forbes; ‘Armed Militias’ Claims In N.C. Driven By Social Media Misinformation

""The amount of misinformation and disinformation we've seen around the recent hurricanes and help efforts is a strong example of how powerful those effects have become," explained Dr. Cliff Lampe, professor of information and associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Information at the University of Michigan.

Misinformation began even before Hurricane Helene made landfall, with the dubious claims that government officials were controlling the weather and directing the storm to hit "red states." The misinformation only intensified after the storm left a path of destruction.

"Over the last weeks we've seen death threats against meteorologists and now first responders in emergency situations," said Lampe. "There are a few things that are challenging about this. One is that belief persistence, which is the effect where people tend to keep believing what they have believed, makes it so that new information often doesn't make a difference in changing people's minds. We tend to think that good information will swamp out bad information, but unfortunately, it's not that simple."

Social media can amplify such misinformation in a way that was previously impossible.

"We saw that a small group of people acting on misinformation can disrupt services of the majority of people with a need," added Lampe.

"False information, especially on social media platforms, spreads incredibly fast. It's crucial to distinguish between misinformation and disinformation," said Rob Lalka, professor at Tulane University's Freeman School of Business and author of The Venture Alchemists: How Big Tech Turned Profits Into Power.

"Misinformation refers to false, incomplete, or inaccurate information shared without harmful intent, while disinformation is deliberately false information designed to deceive," Lalka continued...

"New technologies are making it increasingly hard to tell what's real and what's fake," said Lalka. "We now live in an era where Artificial Intelligence can generate lifelike images and audio, and these powerful tools should prompt us all to pause and consider whether a source is truly trustworthy.""

Meteorologists Face Harassment and Death Threats Amid Hurricane Disinformation; The New York Times, October 14, 2024

Kate Selig , The New York Times; Meteorologists Face Harassment and Death Threats Amid Hurricane Disinformation

"Meteorologists’ role of delivering lifesaving weather forecasts and explaining climate science sometimes makes them targets for harassment, and this kind of abuse has been happening for years, weather experts said. But amid the conspiracy theories and falsehoods that have spiraled online after Hurricanes Helene and Milton, they say the attacks and threats directed at them have reached new heights."

Meteorologists battle flood of misinformation as they report on Milton; The Washington Post, October 9, 2024

Maham Javaid

 and 

Kim Bellware

, The Washington Post; 

Meteorologists battle flood of misinformation as they report on Milton

"Several meteorologists and climate scientists told The Washington Post that they have spent decades warning about how climate change will lead to extreme weather events such as Milton. But the struggle to disseminate information in a fractured media environment has been worsened by an aggressive flood of misinformation, they say.

“This is by far the worst misinformation [for a] weather event I’ve ever seen in my career,” said Katie Nickolaou, a meteorologist with CBS affiliate WLNS in Lansing, Mich. “Because of Helene, you have so many people who now want to pretend to be experts or people who, as I put it, cosplay as meteorologists.”

Nickolaou said social media has become a hostile environment for scientists. On the meteorologist’s Facebook page Tuesday, a user “recommended murdering people to stop these hurricanes” — which Nickolaou understood as a reference to the conspiracy theory that the government or meteorologists are controlling hurricanes."

Inside the White House’s desperate scramble to swat down hurricane misinformation; CNN, October 9, 2024

Priscilla Alvarez, Sean Lyngaas, Kayla Tausche and Pete Muntean, , CNN; Inside the White House’s desperate scramble to swat down hurricane misinformation

"In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, senior Biden administration officials raced to engage in a round-the-clock effort to respond to what appeared to be an unprecedented amount of misinformation circling about the storm and the federal response to it.

Meetings were quickly convened across government to try to solve for the alarming rise in false information – from claims about funds being directed to migrant services instead of recovery to allegations that survivors were only eligible for little assistance – that have in part been amplified by Elon Musk and former President Donald Trump.

“This has been a galvanizing moment for the White House and the federal government because of just the outright lying and spreading of lies,” one US official said."