A Disinformation Trial Run

The conspiracies and false claims surrounding hurricane relief efforts carry an important silver lining.

Hurricane Helene and the flooding it brought to inland areas was bad enough. But instead of coming together as a country, we quickly, and rather horrifically, tore each other apart even more. The right-wing disinformation machine pushed out a dizzying array of false and dangerous hurricane relief claims, all in an effort to weaponize the calamity for political gain.

This is all very dispiriting, but there’s an illuminating silver lining. In my view, the MAGA universe has now showed its hand early, more than four weeks before the election. This inadvertently provided those working hard to defend democracy with valuable insight into who to watch and how the right will seek to weaponize disinformation come Election Day and beyond.

The experience also offered some assurance that government officials, and thankfully most of the media, are prepared to push back against disinformation. And for content moderators at Meta and TikTok, this week also revealed where the social media platforms remain highly vulnerable to disinformation campaigns.

In today’s piece, I’ll step through who the primary spreaders of false claims and rumors were around the hurricane and the subsequent relief efforts. I’ll then highlight the important ways the system, including government, media and engaged citizens, pushed back to hold against the torrent of lies. Lastly, I’ll discuss how these lessons can carry over to the upcoming election and what everyone trying to prevent a repeat of the Big Lie and January 6 can do to prepare and respond.

The top of the MAGA mill

The right-wing disinformation system works as a network with several important nodes. Near the top of the list, there were no surprises. The worst actors included ex-president Donald Trump, who predictably attacked the White House and FEMA, falsely alleging an absence of communication and callous uncaring leadership, while asserting without basis that $1 billion in relief funds had been “stolen” and went to migrants instead.

At a campaign speech in Saginaw, Michigan last Thursday, Trump falsely claimed,

“The Harris-Biden administration says they don’t have any money [for hurricane relief]. … They spent it all on illegal migrants. … They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them.”

The Washington Post investigated this absurd assertion, and it determined with no small irony that the only president who ever diverted FEMA funds to use on migrants was Donald Trump himself, rendering his claim a classic projection.

Meddling Musk

The list of lie spreaders also included Trump’s new and awkwardly leaping cheerleader, Elon Musk. The billionaire owner of Twitter, which he rebranded as X, dialed up the rhetoric to dangerous levels. Per reporting by the Washington Post on Musk’s statements:

He labeled FEMA’s actions “treason” and sent a reply indicating agreement with a post from another user who said Harris and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “should be jailed for life for spending FEMA money on illegal aliens and not Americans.”

Musk also amplified false claims, viewed by 28 million people, that FAA flight restrictions were going to “shut down the Airspace,” preventing private choppers from delivering relief in the form of Starlink units and supplies. Musk disparaged it as “belligerent government incompetence” that was “staggering.” He had to be fact checked—politely—by Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who certainly has better use for his time than responding to Musk’s false claims:

No one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn’t block legitimate rescue and recovery flights. If you’re encountering a problem give me a call.

Musk also amplified false claims about a “blockade” from right-wing nut job Valentina Gomez, whose online antics and trolling are well known. The fact that she is in his timeline and he is accepting her word as truth in any form is disturbing in the extreme.

Murdoch media and Don, Jr.

The New York Post also got in the game quickly, leading with a shameful and false front-page photo and headline:

Don Trump, Jr. added his voice to this false claim, blasting the “Shelter and Services program” and posting, “So FEMA is almost out of money to help with Federal Emergencies (you know the FE in FEMA) because they spent almost $1,000,000,000 helping illegal immigrants over the last two years." 

Concerned that victims of the hurricane would believe the NY Post and Don Trump, Jr.’s false claims and not apply for the help they were entitled to, FEMA responded directly on its web site with a “Rumor Response Page,” where it addressed many lies and conspiracies that were circulating. “FEMA has enough money right now for immediate response and recovery needs,” the agency stated. “If you were affected by Helene, do not hesitate to apply for disaster assistance as there is a variety of help available for different needs."

Don Trump, Jr. also posted suggesting that a $750 emergency stipend was all Americans affected by the storm would ever receive. “$750 for Americans in desperate need many of whom lost everything including family,” the young Trump wrote. “$250 BILLION spent in Ukraine. … Enough of this madness!”

The younger Trump was twisting the words of Vice President Harris, who had said earlier in her speech in Augusta, Georgia that FEMA was “providing $750 for folks who need immediate needs [to be] met, such as food, baby formula and the like.” He left out the part where she talked about the tens of thousands of additional federal dollars available. 

FEMA again had to post on its Rumor Response page: “Rumor: FEMA will only provide $750 to disaster survivors to support their recovery. Fact: This is false.” 

The dregs of the internet

Bad faith actors who are lower down the MAGA totem pole were busy as well. Extremist blowhard Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA spread dangerous lies. For example, he posted a rumor that disparaged hard-working FEMA employees as lazy and entitled, posting from an anonymous “source” that FEMA personnel are being housed in one of the “nicest hotels,” “only work until 5pm,” and “will not work weekends.” Kirk asked, “Is this true @FEMA? Americans are dying but FEMA workers are treating their job like a 9-5 government clock punching gig?!?

(Narrator: It was not true, and there’s a special seat in hell for Kirk for spreading it.)

FEMA Director Deanne Criswell responded to unfair and unfounded criticism of her agency and its workers. In an interview with ABC on Sunday, she called the disinformation “just plain false” and “truly dangerous,” adding it was “a shame that people are sitting home on their comfortable couches while we have thousands of people here on the ground that have left their own families to be able to help those in need.”

Lesser known MAGA accounts (or foreign accounts acting like them) spread some of the wackiest and most dangerous rumors. For example, this account amplified a false story that the government is using the disaster as a pretense for a land grab to force people from their homes and seize their property, and that a militia should form to “go against” FEMA.

There was even a conspiracy, one that was quickly debunked, that the “government” was seizing the whole town of Chimney Rock, North Carolina in order to bulldoze bodies under the rubble. Yeah, that was really a thing, seen and believed by millions.

Director Criswell noted that this kind of rhetoric and the swirling of conspiracies created “fear in our own employees.” Many government officials received antisemitic and misogynistic threats. It’s reminiscent of attacks upon scientists and health policy experts during the Covid pandemic, where the best among us—those on the frontlines actually trying to do the most to save lives—themselves became targets of mistrust and hate.

Governments, the media and citizens respond

To the extent it was discouraging, and even sometimes downright scary, to see such obvious falsehoods come from MAGA political leaders and ricochet across social media, it was heartening to see other government officials and the media step in to fill and filter out pollution in the information space.

The governors of the states hit hardest by the hurricane and flooding offered public praise for the Biden administration’s efforts, refuting claims by Trump and other politicians that the White House was absent and uncommunicative. Senator Thom Tillis, who is not running for reelection, offered praise for relief efforts while condemning those sneering from the sidelines.

“I’m actually impressed with how much attention was paid to a region that wasn’t likely to have experienced the impact that they did,” Tillis said to reporters. “I’m out here to say that we’re doing a good job, and those who may not be on the ground, who are making those assessments, ought to get on the ground.”

Local Republican officials in North Carolina urged a halt to the false rumors and claims. In a plea over Facebook, North Carolina state Senator Kevin Corbin wrote, “Will you all help STOP this conspiracy theory junk that is floating all over Facebook and the internet about the floods in WNC [Western North Carolina]? Example: FEMA is stealing money from donations, body bags ordered but government has denied, bodies not being buried, government is controlling the weather from Antarctica, government is trying to get lithium from WNC, stacks of bodies left at hospitals, and on and on and on. PLEASE help stop this junk. It is just a distraction to people trying to do their job….Please don’t let these crazy stories consume you or have you continually contact your elected officials to see if they are true.”

CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times and other major media outlets all ran stories debunking the conspiracies and false claims that were abounding, including specific fact checks of Trump’s many lies.

Perhaps the most encouraging development was to watch ordinary citizens take to TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to combat the disinformation with real information, first hand accounts and pleas for sanity. Here’s just one example of that work by ordinary citizens, which has been viewed 1.5 million times.

Lessons for our election

It is a near certainty that, if and when it becomes clear that Donald Trump is going to lose the election, the MAGA disinformation machine will swing into action to call the results into question. 

We already know many of the attack vectors. Just as they just did with the hurricane relief funds, Trump and his MAGA allies will leverage hatred and fear of migrants—feelings Trump himself has stoked for months—to falsely claim that millions of “illegal immigrants” have voted. 

They will edit videos to make innocuous things look bad, just as they did with footage of election workers at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, whom they accused of hauling in suitcases of ballots. (In fact, the workers had put boxes of valid ballots below the tables for the evening, and pulled them back up the next morning to resume counting.)

They’ll even use AI to create fake photos and video to garner sympathy or stoke emotions. Already, fake generated AI images of Trump wading through the floodwaters or a girl getting rescued with her puppy have made the rounds, while news outlets scrambled to call them out.

The removal of content moderation on Twitter, and the inability of Meta and TikTok to stop the spread of fake news, permitted rumors to snowball then create an avalanche. But if the big social media companies, other than X of course, are listening, I hope they are now monitoring any accounts that spread or amplified lies about hurricane relief efforts. Those accounts raised their hands as if to say, “I’ll help spread rumors!” Certainly the Russians are taking note, so we should assume those are the very accounts that will attempt the same with the election. Their reach and influence could and should be throttled if they spread misinformation around the election, as we expect.

Government officials need to assume that false claims will be posted and spread, and they shouldn’t wait until millions have seen and absorbed them before acting. This past week was a dress rehearsal for the inevitable false claims around the election, and we can and must prepare. One way to do that is to warn everyone in advance to be on the lookout for false claims and to think twice about spreading rumors.

County and state governments, in particular, should have rumor response pages in place before the election, with a link that is publicized so that citizens can read the truth.

And when the false claims begin, as we know they will, all of us can help push back with the truth. That means sharing good information provided by trusted government sources and having talking points at the ready about how election claims need to be taken up and adjudicated by the courts using hard, admissible evidence, rather than allow speculation and innuendo to sway public opinion.

MAGA may have thought they were “owning the libs” again through their bad faith takes and rumor mongering around the hurricane. But instead, they were building up our experience and resilience. They often like to warn us that “The Storm Is Coming,” a dark phrase taken from the depths of the QAnon conspiracies. 

Well, the big storm came, and MAGA revealed its hand in its aftermath. We all now know better what to expect. 

Time to prepare for the big one to come.