Hurricane Milton

[Donoghus]

Looking like it has the potential to be a really bad one.  Just wanted to send thoughts and good vibes to any of you down in FL that are caught up in this.  Stay safe.

[ozgod]

Prayers for all CSers who were affected by Milton, hope you guys are all safe

Apparently some crazy (to me, anyway) rumors going around social media about Helene and Milton, which are jeopardizing evacuation and rescue efforts. I guess these types of things have always been around because there are some unhinged folks out there, but social media has allowed it to reach a much bigger audience than your local doomsayer standing on a milk crate in the town square in days of old. And it's allowed some bad actors (at home and abroad) as well as bored trolls in their basements to foment some chaos.

Bizarre Falsehoods About Hurricanes Helene and Milton Disrupt Recovery Efforts
Experts warn that weather-related disinformation can rapidly escalate into real-world risks and distract from aid.

Wildly improbable conspiracy theories about Hurricanes Helene and Milton have spread largely unchecked on social media. The storms were engineered to clear the way for lithium mining. They were sent to help the Democrats in next month?s election. They were formed by weather-controlling lasers.

The claims persist despite attempts by scientists and government officials to debunk them with evidence. They survive all calls to reason.

The falsehoods, which have been circulating on X, TikTok, YouTube and other platforms, can resemble the conspiracy theories that plague modern American politics. Prominent figures are pushing them, citing unrelated, misleading or outdated evidence.

But the risks are often more immediate. Online climate-related conspiracy theories can quickly cause damage offline, disrupting emergency communications and recovery efforts. Officials have said this week that the disinformation about Hurricanes Helene and Milton was making relief workers a target, and the American Red Cross warned that the outlandish claims could prevent survivors from seeking help.

?If they?re telling you that the government is responsible for the disaster, that doesn?t help you at all in getting ready for it,? said Jose E. Ramirez-Marquez, an associate professor of systems engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology and a co-author of a journal article this month on how hurricane-related information traveled through X.

On TikTok, millions of users were exposed to conspiracy theories about the storms, according to research from the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America. There were claims that Helene was the product of a man-made land grab to enable lithium mining in North Carolina, though the hurricane also plowed through several other states. Climate scientists have said there is no way for humans to manufacture hurricanes.

Other false narratives spread in ad-supported YouTube videos with tens of thousands of views and in X posts with millions of views, voiced by public figures including a Christian nationalist podcaster, a former Trump administration official and a Republican congresswoman. They said the hurricanes were the result of government efforts to disrupt voting by steering the storm toward Republican districts; sound waves and microwave weapons; or greed-fueled plots benefiting investment firms like BlackRock. (Scientists debunked such claims, saying that humans cannot modify the path of a storm and that no technology exists that can create hurricanes.

Many of the narratives contained strains of conspiracy theories floated during earlier natural disasters. Peddlers of climate disinformation are opportunistic, experts said, often recycling claims and blasting them into the information ecosystem during times of crisis until they catch the public?s attention and take off. Since late September, when Helene made landfall, the number of articles and social media posts that mentioned both hurricanes alongside terms such as ?geoengineered,? ?manipulated? and ?weather weapons? has ballooned, according to data cited by Newsguard, a group that tracks misinformation.

Pyrra Technologies, a company that monitors fringe social media, found that false story lines introduced during Helene about the Federal Emergency Management Agency were being repurposed for Milton on platforms associated with the far right. Common disinformation tactics, such as misrepresenting old footage, were also deployed: Some accounts shared a video of a woman being thrown out of a Texas bar in 2023 and falsely claimed that it showed a more recent assault against a FEMA official.

Matt Huggins, a 35-year-old police officer in Marion, N.C., spent several days with FEMA crews last week, touring the floodwaters in a tiny boat looking for anyone who needed help. When he went online afterward, he encountered conspiracy theories criticizing FEMA agents as part of a secretive government plot.

?They aren?t mining for lithium,? he wrote in an emotional Facebook post. ?They?re running their bodies into the ground to search for and help people they don?t know.?

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/10/business/media/hurricane-milton-helene-conspiracy-theories.html

[ozgod]

By the way, the Republican congresswoman referred to in the story above is Majorie Taylor-Greene. Here's what she said:



Then again, this is the lady that believes in Jewish Space Lasers, so who knows

[Donoghus]

By the way, the Republican congresswoman referred to in the story above is Majorie Taylor-Greene. Here's what she said:



Then again, this is the lady that believes in Jewish Space Lasers, so who knows

She's completely bat-sh*t.  I can't believe there are morons that think humans can just conjure up hurricanes.  Hell, we still struggle to predict the weather and you're telling me we have the means to manufacture something like a hurricane?

[keevsnick]

People have been trying various methods to control the weather for almost a century, and the best anybodies been able to do is MAYBE make it slightly more likely to rain when it was already possible it would rain. Nobody is controlling hurricanes.