False Weather Claims on Social Media Threaten Lives, Disrupt Disaster Response

False and misleading claims about extreme weather events are proliferating across social media platforms at an alarming rate, hampering disaster response efforts and potentially endangering lives, according to a comprehensive new report by the Center for Counter Digital Hate (CCDH).

The report opens with a stark example from this July’s devastating Texas floods, which claimed more than 130 lives. As emergency crews worked to locate survivors and families grieved their losses, social media became flooded with conspiracy theories rather than factual information about the disaster.

“Instead [of accurate information], they found disturbing lies about rescue efforts, people downplaying the severity of the disaster, and conspiracy theories about weather manipulation,” the report states. “By undermining trust in first responders and sowing confusion in moments of crisis, platforms are sabotaging disaster response for profit.”

Researchers tracked this troubling pattern across multiple disasters, analyzing 300 high-engagement misleading posts published between April 2023 and April 2025 on platforms owned by Meta (Facebook and Instagram), X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube. The investigation revealed a consistent pattern of misinformation during critical events like Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 and the Los Angeles wildfires in early 2025.

Common false narratives included claims that hurricanes were “geoengineered weapons,” wildfires were ignited by “government lasers,” and that migrants were receiving disaster aid before legitimate victims. These assertions contradict established scientific understanding that climate change is intensifying extreme weather events, and directly contradicted official statements from agencies like FEMA confirming adequate resources for emergency response.

Perhaps most concerning is the reach of these falsehoods. The report found that individual posts from prominent “superspreaders” like conspiracy theorist Alex Jones sometimes garnered “more views than all relevant posts from 10 leading news outlets and 10 key emergency organizations combined.”

The real-world consequences have proven dangerous. In one documented case, an armed individual radicalized by online misinformation threatened FEMA employees near a disaster relief site before being arrested. In Los Angeles County, scammers exploited the chaos by targeting displaced residents with fraudulent advertisements designed to harvest personal data under the guise of securing federal assistance.

Imran Ahmed, CEO of CCDH, drew parallels between extreme weather misinformation and other harmful online content. “The way that social media platforms profit through addiction and through a chaotic information ecosystem is vital still to understanding the spread of hatred, but it’s increasingly important for studying the spread of other malignancies as well,” he told The Energy Mix.

Ahmed further explained how content creators manipulate platform algorithms: “Quite often we find that the same sort of ‘engagement farmers’ on social media platforms will happily weaponize hatred as they will climate denial in order to garner the engagement that drives them up the algorithm and allows them to profit more from revenue change schemes.”

The financial dimension of this problem is substantial. According to the report, YouTube displayed advertisements alongside 29% of misleading extreme weather videos analyzed. X enabled five content creators pushing false weather claims to offer paid subscriptions, creating profit opportunities for both the platform and misinformation spreaders. Similarly, Meta was found to be sharing ad revenue with three disinformation content creators.

Despite clear community guidelines against misinformation, the platforms applied fact-checks or community notes to fewer than 2% of the 300 misleading posts examined. “The overwhelming majority of posts spreading lies about disaster response, climate change causes, and emergency aid were left unmoderated before being algorithmically boosted and monetized,” the report concludes.

As extreme weather events become more frequent and severe due to climate change, the need for reliable information during emergencies grows more critical. Ahmed argues that tech companies must be held to higher standards of accountability, calling for greater transparency regarding their algorithms, enforcement practices, and advertising policies.

The findings raise urgent questions about social media’s role during disasters and highlight the growing tension between platform profit incentives and public safety concerns during increasingly common climate-related emergencies.