Clive ThompsonOct 9, 2024

"Hurricane Helene was NOT geoengineered by the government to seize and access lithium deposits in Chimney Rock."

There are so many right-wing, pro-Trump conspiracy theories about this hurricane season that yesterday, Chuck Edwards -- a Republican congressman in North Carolina -- put up a page of debunkings:

https://edwards.house.gov/media/press-releases/debunking-helene-response-myths

It's pretty wild

Disinfo experts predict that lies and conspiracy theories will worsen this season: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/november-election-hurricane-disinformation/680202/

Unpaywalled: https://archive.is/7RJUj

Debunking Helene Response Myths

Dear Friend, over the past 10 days, I have been proud of how our mountain communities have come together to help one another.

Congressman Chuck Edwards
Show threadHel O'Ween

@clive

TBH, you don't need experts to predict that misinformation will worsen. Not only this season, but for the foreseeable future. You just need to look around yourself.

Especially the widely available and easy to use AI tools will boost the spreading of misinformation. With those, every ambitious layman now can create fakes that take more than a casual closer look to identify something as made up. That was formerly a domain of state actors.

Oct 10, 2024 at 10:13amWeb
Show threadClive ThompsonOct 10, 2024

@HelOWeen

True, alas