PGI’s Digital Investigations Team brings you the Digital Threat Digest, SOCMINT and OSINT insights into disinformation, influence operations, and online harms.
I don’t think many people have escaped the devastating news about the recent hurricanes that have hit the US in recent weeks. Several southern states including Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia have been heart-wrenchingly ripped apart by natural disasters, with limited respite between hurricanes Helene and Milton. And, as I write this, Nadine is quickly gaining power in the Atlantic. But, amid the broken homes, the thousands of displaced families, missing pets and wildlife, and tragic deaths, this hurricane season has witnessed the mainstreaming of another terrifying phenomenon: extreme natural disaster conspiracy.
Conspiracy around climate change is not new – but rather than taking the form of climate change denial as was the case over the past decade, voices have begun accusations of something far more sinister. In the wake of Helene, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted 'Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done’. If you’re wondering who she is talking about when she says ‘they’, I’ll give you a little hint - the last time she chimed in on environmental matters she claimed that the devastating wildfires of 2021 were a result of Jewish space lasers.
This tweet was picked up by the conspiracy nuts of the internet and by an alarmingly high number of right-wing political commentators and, at several points during the impact of Helene, was a trending topic on X. Within 24 hours of Greene’s tweet, it became near-on impossible to open the comment section on a hurricane TikTok and not see ‘weather seeding’ or ‘they did it’ or ‘deep state’ – even when the video itself had no mention of this conspiracy at all.
Then, as Helene dissipated and documentation of its destruction began, another narrative hit the internet, falling more into the disinformation camp than a conspiracy theory. At a rally in Butler, PA, Presidential candidate Donald Trump twisted a statement made by FEMA (The Federal Emergency Management Agency), claiming that 'they’re offering $750 to people whose homes have been washed away, and yet we send tens of billions of dollars to foreign countries that most people have never heard of. They’re offering them $750. They’ve been destroyed'. What Trump failed to mention, was that the $750 was an immediate ‘Serious Needs Assistance’ payout to help with food and water and other basics and that those hit hardest by Helene would receive more than this on a case-by-case, needs basis.
This narrative quickly twisted further into an online hurricane, going viral on social media and fearmongering in video comment sections. Some news outlets even published articles, as Milton began spinning up into a Category 5, that FEMA had run out of money during the efforts after Helene, and that there would be no help to those hit by Milton. None of this was true, and despite countless fact-checks, the narrative continued to grow and grow until the online narrative began resulting in offline harm.
In the last week, government agency officials were forced to temporarily evacuate from Rutherford County in North Carolina where they were providing post-hurricane support after two groups of armed militia members were patrolling the area looking for FEMA relief workers. Separately, on the 12 October, a man was arrested for bringing a gun and a rifle into a supermarket after he spotted a FEMA car parked outside. Luckily, there are no reports to suggest any FEMA agents have been harmed, but the scary fact of the matter is that the primary motivation that led to these individuals picking up their guns and mobilising against hurricane support workers was online disinformation and conspiracy theories, amplified and mainstreamed by an elected Representative and a Presidential candidate.
It's important to remember that what is said online doesn’t just stay online – conspiracy theories and disinformation have, and will continue to, pose the risk of violent real-world harm and we must continue to talk about it and advocate for information resiliency in all aspects of our society.
More about Protection Group International's Digital Investigations
Our Digital Investigations Analysts combine modern exploitative technology with deep human analytical expertise that covers the social media platforms themselves and the behaviours and the intents of those who use them. Our experienced analyst team have a deep understanding of how various threat groups use social media and follow a three-pronged approach focused on content, behaviour and infrastructure to assess and substantiate threat landscapes.
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I don’t think many people have escaped the devastating news about the recent hurricanes that have hit the US in recent weeks.
For a long time we’ve worked on the assumption that once something is on the internet, it’s there forever.
I remember when I studied the susceptibility to committing crime in my Crime Studies post-grad. According to research, many factors, ranging from cognitive biases, emotional vulnerabilities, to social environments, influence a person’s likelihood of committing a crime.