[Editor’s note: There is a disturbing trend going on on the
internet right now of people spreading false information about the Hurricanes
Harvey, Irma, Jose and Katia. What is disturbing about it is that it looks very
much like an orchestrated campaign of scaremongering and when notorious disinfo
operations like Alex Jones get in on the act, it becomes even more suspicious.
Who is behind this
campaign? To what purpose are they spreading fear? Who might benefit from
causing people to panic? These are questions we have no answers to right now.
What is important and
made doubly so by this disgraceful and disturbing fearmongering, is that the
people living in the potential paths of these hurricanes do not panic, rather,
they should remain calm and seek out accurate and reliable information from
legitimate sources such as the local authorities and the professional
meteorologists.
Take all necessary
precautions, make sure you know where your local shelters are located and that
you can get there if need be, but don’t get scared and run for the hills, don’t
base your decisions on crap you read on the internet, especially social media
and video sharing sites, be sensible, calm and rational and make sure you are
well-informed from legitimate sources. Ian]
Striking video and reports are emerging about
Hurricane Irma catastrophically hitting the Americas – but don’t believe
everything you see.
As with Storm Harvey in
Texas last week, fake news, videos and doctored images about Irma have spread
rumours about the scale and path of the hurricane – which meteorologists have
been keen to warn against online.
Irma, which is the most
powerful Atlantic storm in a decade, has devastated parts of the Caribbean with
wind speeds of 285km/h (180mph), leaving at least 10 people dead and reducing
buildings to rubble.
Fake videos
One popular video posted
on Thursday morning appears to show the force of hurricane winds hitting Puerto
Rico, in the Caribbean, accompanied by howling winds which sound like a train
engine. It was retweeted over 3,000 times.
But Irma did not hit
Puerto Rico directly, instead the hurricane passed by the island causing power
cuts.
Matching footage, which
appears to be from the British Virgin Islands was posted on Wednesday, seven
hours ahead of the video labelled Puerto Rico.
However, this footage was
posted on Twitter without sound. It was picked up by a Turkish meteorological
site and later by video uploading platform LiveLeak.com, as well as other
social media users, who described the scene as San Juan, Puerto Rico. At some
point along the way, the soundtrack was added.
The result was confusion
among Twitter users, some of whom accused @Whippodilly of “fake news” – while
others asked about the video from Wednesday night, which they had seen labelled
as Puerto Rico.
Another video, with
almost 8,000 likes and retweeted more than 9,000 times, was also shared on
Wednesday night by American weather reporter Jamie Erle, but matches footage
which is over a year old and likely to be from Tornado Dolores in Uruguay,
Craig Silverman of BuzzFeed tracked the spread of the video.
The video – with the
caption ‘Hurricane Irma’ – has been viewed almost 28 million times on Facebook.
It was later tweeted with the claim it was taken in Barbados.
Another video, with more
than half a million views, claims to show the hurricane passing over Barbuda
but – as Twitter user @PicPedant. pointed out – the same YouTube account posted
the same footage the day before, claiming it to be from the Virgin Islands, although
a voice on the video claims it to be from “Tropical Storm Gonzalo,” a hurricane
which hit Bermuda in 2014.
Meanwhile, a Facebook
Live purporting to show passengers trapped in an over-turned bus during Irma
gained millions of views, only for the footage to match clips from Cyclone
Vardha, which struck Chennai, India in 2016.
Not ‘Category 6’
Reports regarding the
strength of Irma and its path across the Atlantic have generated thousands of
reactions online, as well as caused concern by residents who were led to
believe they live in the storm’s trajectory.
An article titled
“Category 6? If Hurricane Irma Becomes The Strongest Hurricane In History, It
Could Wipe Entire Cities Off The Map” published last week on the blog The
Economic Collapse was shared more than two million times from blogs and
Facebook pages such as Sons of Liberty Media and Freedom Outpost.
Although the article did
not categorically state that the hurricane had been classified as ‘Category 6′, it implied there was
serious scientific suggestion it should be, and some on Twitter understood it
to be.
On Wednesday, the claim
Irma was a category six storm was repeated by InfoWars’ Alex Jones.
Hurricanes cannot
currently be categorised as category six according to the Saffir-Simpson scale
– the highest rating is category five, which scientists describe as bringing
catastrophic damage. However, many were led to believe the unusual force of
Irma had caused it to be categorised as off the established scale.
One American
meteorologist put the record straight on Twitter.
Last week rumours spread
that Houston, Texas was going to receive a second battering from hurricane
winds and rain, after photoshopped images appeared of Irma’s path through the
Americas.
The National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who monitor meteorological conditions in
America, reposted a tweet from its National Weather Service account, warning
about fake weather forecasts. It came after a Facebook post showing the path of
Irma hitting Houston, which was hit by Storm Harvey last week, was shared
almost 40,000 times.
A popular Facebook post
(L) posted a picture of Irma heading for Houston Texas. NOAA (R) tweeted a
warning about fake forecasts with an official image of the hurricane’s
trajectory.
As Irma is predicted to
hit more of the Caribbean and the southern coastal areas of the United States
by the weekend, it is likely that fake news will continue to come with it.
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