Posted on Jan 11, 2020
Australia's Wildfires Spark Disinformation Battle As They Take A Tragic Toll
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Australia is struggling to cope with deadly infernos and faces losing nearly a billion animals in the terrible bushfires — but in the midst of those tragedies, authorities are also battling hoaxes and misinformation, including false reports of widespread arson. Many of the claims seek to suggest that arson, not climate change, was a key driver of the historic fires.
The hashtag #ArsonEmergency began trending shortly after the new year. Queensland University of Technology researcher Timothy Graham says he identified troll and bot social media accounts that tried to shift the narrative about the fires as being the work of dozens of criminals.
"We studied about 300 Twitter accounts driving the #ArsonEmergency hashtag to identify inauthentic behavior," Graham said Friday in an essay for The Conversation, which he co-wrote with fellow researcher Tobias Keller.
"We found many accounts using #ArsonEmergency were behaving 'suspiciously,' compared to those using #AustraliaFire and #BushfireAustralia," they said. "Accounts peddling #ArsonEmergency carried out activity similar to what we've witnessed in past disinformation campaigns, such as the coordinated behavior of Russian trolls during the 2016 US presidential election."
The hashtag #ArsonEmergency began trending shortly after the new year. Queensland University of Technology researcher Timothy Graham says he identified troll and bot social media accounts that tried to shift the narrative about the fires as being the work of dozens of criminals.
"We studied about 300 Twitter accounts driving the #ArsonEmergency hashtag to identify inauthentic behavior," Graham said Friday in an essay for The Conversation, which he co-wrote with fellow researcher Tobias Keller.
"We found many accounts using #ArsonEmergency were behaving 'suspiciously,' compared to those using #AustraliaFire and #BushfireAustralia," they said. "Accounts peddling #ArsonEmergency carried out activity similar to what we've witnessed in past disinformation campaigns, such as the coordinated behavior of Russian trolls during the 2016 US presidential election."
Australia's Wildfires Spark Disinformation Battle As They Take A Tragic Toll
Posted from npr.org
Australia
Climate Change
Propaganda
Social Media
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 3
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It's always been hot and dry down there, I wonder why they haven't strengthened their fire fighting resources.
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Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen
So unpopulated that let it burn out has become the norm. Different this time around.
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Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen
CPL Douglas Chrysler Not really, California is highly populated so they have to do something but not true in Australia.
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Funny how only the pro-climate change "arson disinformation" stuff came out after they released the Muslim teen from jail after he was arrested for arson. The Aussies have arrested almost 200 people for arson, so is that a disinformation? You should know a disinformation campaign when you see one, and the disinformation is that this was caused by climate change, not arson.
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Sgt Jim Belanus
climate has been changing since the world was formed. This country was covered by a vast sheet of ice 10000 years ago. Did man cause it to melt?
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LT Brad McInnis
Sgt Jim Belanus - Apparently, we did. Al Gore told me at my commissioning that we had 10 years until the planet dies. That was a lot more than 10 years ago...
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I am an engineer that has worked with overall project environmental clearances for going on 40 years, and have specialized for over 10 years now in environmental clearances and issues, to include causes and effects. I so dislike that the term “climate change” has sort of been made into a slogan to limit greenhouse gases and infers that climate change is caused by human actions. Have human actions added to the climate changing (notice I didn’t use the phrase as an issue but a process)? Maybe, we honestly don’t know. How come we don’t see studies about naturally occurring gas emissions like volcanos and what emissions occur from a specific developed area? Can honest numbers be evaluated… they sure can, but it appears for some reason the science community only puts out studies that support how bad human actions are; or at lease they are the only ones that get published widely.
To me it appears the scientific community has been shanghaied by a political process that only wants to look at one side of an issue. Let’s look at the sentence: Australia's fires are spreading more quickly and ferociously because of prolonged drought and hot weather — both of which are exacerbated by climate change — are providing copious dry fuel. From this article. It’s obvious to anyone with a brain that they are directly blaming “drought and hot weather” on climate change, without exploring any other potential causes. This isn’t the place to give a class on environmental factors and effects, I am only pointing out how one sided “reported” scientific data seems to be. MHO
To me it appears the scientific community has been shanghaied by a political process that only wants to look at one side of an issue. Let’s look at the sentence: Australia's fires are spreading more quickly and ferociously because of prolonged drought and hot weather — both of which are exacerbated by climate change — are providing copious dry fuel. From this article. It’s obvious to anyone with a brain that they are directly blaming “drought and hot weather” on climate change, without exploring any other potential causes. This isn’t the place to give a class on environmental factors and effects, I am only pointing out how one sided “reported” scientific data seems to be. MHO
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