In Disasters, People Are Abandoning Official Info for Social Media. How to Know What to Trust
What Can Citizens Do?
Compounded by misinformation, fake news, disinformation and the plethora of social media and other media, it is no wonder that citizens may be confused and retreating to local or other “go to” social media sources.
It is not a matter of government information versus other sources of information. Often official advice is the starting point for outlining what is going on and encouraging local dialogue. This creates the opportunity for the local community to crowdsource information and offer further insights from locals on the ground.
The first step to being information-ready is to be mindful that there is a whole ecosystem of information sources and channels.
Your basic, trusted source of information should still be government agencies. Trusted local sources can then amplify that information or add context. Likewise, individuals may provide reports from the ground, share their experiences and contribute to how a community makes sense of what’s happening.
Don’t Believe Everything You Read
While community social media sources can be excellent sources of local information, you shouldn’t accept everything you see there at face value.
Local Facebook and WhatsApp groups, for example, can have very fluid membership and their own biases – meaning the quality of information they provide may vary. What’s more, the most visible and engaging posts on social media are often the most controversial ones, not necessarily the most accurate ones.
As well as biases and limited reliability, social media are also vulnerable to organized attempts at disinformation. During Australia’s 2019-20 bushfires, for example, the hashtag #arsonemergency pushed the narrative that arsonists (rather than climate change) were the main cause of the fires.
However, the hashtag turned out to be a concerted effort to change the narrative and even media agencies were fooled.
This highlights the need to crosscheck information obtained from social media.
Emergencies are emotional and volatile events, so you should make yourself familiar with government social media and warning channels before events like bushfires or floods occur. If you know in advance where to go and what sources to trust, it will take some stress out of the situation.
At the same time, educate yourself on how to evaluate information.
Most platforms are trying to counter misinformation. Keep an eye out for tags on content that is harmfully misleading, or indicating official trusted sources.
Debunking popular misinformation is another common tactic, and fact-checkers operating at a local level could reassure the public. So-called “prebunking” - pre-emptive debunking before misinformation has spread – is also effective at reducing susceptibility to misinformation at scale.
Like all approaches, these have their drawbacks. People have to actively choose to engage with them. And, perhaps more significantly, in the volatile situation of an emergency people often simply revert to familiar sources of information.
Stan Karanasios is Associate professor, The University of Queensland. Peter Hayes is Research Fellow, CQUniversity Australia. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation.
