When Trevor Allen and his family emerged from under the kitchen table where they barricaded themselves during the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, the destruction from flooding in their neighborhood shocked him.
So did the flood of misinformation and disinformation that quickly emerged on social media, including about his own North Carolina community, where he is pastor of the Fairview Christian Fellowship. The situation in Fairview was “absolutely awful,” Allen said. The social posts didn’t “need to make it worse.”
Experts weren’t surprised by the unfounded rumors and divisive posts that appeared. They’ve documented a growing stream of such material after natural disasters in the United States.
Misinformation and false rumors have been around as long as there have been emergencies, said Jamie Biglow, a consultant who works in emergency planning for a range of disasters with CNA, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit research and analysis organization.
However, social media has given purveyors of either accidentally or purposely inaccurate or harmful information a broader, and faster, platform. Experts at CNA said the avalanche of posts after Helene and the Maui wildfires is just another example of how pervasive it is and how quickly it moves.